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<#nglt0f)  Jttett  of  Cetters 

EDITED  BY  JOHN  MORLEY 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2007  with  funding  from 

Microsoft  Corporation 


http://www.archive.org/details/cowpersmitOOsmitiala 


WILLIAM  COWPER 


Cowper 


by 


GOLDWIN     SMITH 

AUTHOR  OF 

SHORT  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND"  "LECTURES  AND  ESSAYS' 

"JANE  AUSTEN"  ETC. 


jEnglteb  n>en  of  Xetters 

EDITED  BY 

JOHN   MORLEY 


HARPER  &   BROTHERS  PUBLISHERS 
NEW     YORK     AND     LONDON 

1902 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  I.  page 

Early  Life 1 

CHAPTER  II. 
At  Huntingdon — The  Unwins 22 

CHAPTER  III. 
At  Olney — Mr.  Newton 35 

CHAPTER  IV. 
Authorship — The  Moral  Satires 47 

CHAPTER  V. 
The  Task 60 

CHAPTER  VI. 
Short  Poems  and  Translations 81 

CHAPTER  VII. 
The  Letters 95 

CHAPTER  VIII. 
Close  of  Life 119 


COWPER. 

CHAPTER  I. 

EARLT  LIFE. 

Cowper  is  the  most  important  English  poet  of  the  period 
between  Pope  and  the  illustrious  group  headed  by  Words- 
worth, Byron,  and  Shelley,  which  arose  out  of  the  intel- 
lectual ferment  of  the  European  Revolution.  As  a  re- 
former of  poetry,  who  called  it  back  from  conventionality 
to  nature,  and  at  the  same  time  as  the  teacher  of  a  new 
school  of  sentiment  which  acted  as  a  solvent  upon  the 
existing  moral  and  social  system,  he  may  perhaps  himself 
be  numbered  among  the  precursors  of  the  Revolution, 
though  he  was  certainly  the  mildest  of  them  all.  As  a 
sentimentalist  he  presents  a  faint  analogy  to  Rousseau, 
whom  in  natural  temperament  he  somewhat  resembled. 
He  was  also  the  great  poet  of  the  religious  revival  which 
marked  the  latter  part  of  the  eighteenth  century  in  Eng- 
land, and  which  was  called  Evangelicism  within  the  estab- 
lishment, and  Methodism  without.  In  this  way  he  is  as- 
sociated with  Wesley  and  Whitefield,  as  well  as  with  the 
philanthropists  of  the  movement,  such  as  Wilberforce, 
Thornton,  and  Clarkson.  As  a  poet  he  touches,  on  dif- 
ferent   sides    of   his   character,  Goldsmith,  Crabbe,  and 


2  COWPER.  [chap. 

Burns.  "With  Goldsmith  and  Crabbe  he  shares  the  hon- 
our of  improving  English  taste  in  the  sense  of  truthful- 
ness and  simplicity.  To  Burns  he  felt  his  affinity,  across 
a  gulf  of  social  circumstance,  and  in  spite  of  a  dialect  not 
yet  made  fashionable  by  Scott.  Besides  his  poetry,  he 
holds  a  high,  perhaps  the  highest  place,  among  English 
letter-writers;  and  the  collection  of  his  letters  appended 
to  Southey's  biography  forms,  with  the  biographical  por- 
tions of  his  poetry,  the  materials  for  a  sketch  of  his  life. 
Southey's  biography  itself  is  very  helpful,  though  too 
prolix  and  too  much  filled  out  with  dissertations  for  com- 
mon readers.  Had  its  author  only  done  for  Cowper  what 
he  did  for  Nelson  !l 

William  Cowper  came  of  the  Whig  nobility  of  the  robe. 
His  great-uncle,  after  whom  he  was  named,  was  the  Whig 
Lord  Chancellor  of  Anne  and  George  I.  His  grandfather 
was  that  Spencer  Cowper,  judge  of  the  Common  Pleas, 
for  love  of  whom  the  pretty  Quakeress  drowned  herself, 
and  who,  by  the  rancour  of  party,  was  indicted  for  her 
murder.  His  father,  the  Rev.  John  Cowper,  D.D.,  was 
chaplain  to  George  II.  His  mother  was  a  Donne,  of  the 
race  of  the  poet,  and  descended  by  several  fines  from 
Henry  IH.  A  "Whig  and  a  gentleman  he  was  by  birth, 
a  Whig  and  a  gentleman  he  remained  to  the  end.  He 
was  born  on  the  15th  November  (old  style),  1731,  in  his 
father's  rectory  of  Berkhampstead.  From  nature  he  re- 
ceived, with  a  large  measure  of  the  gifts  of  genius,  a  still 
larger  measure  of  its  painful  sensibilities.  In  his  portrait 
by  Romney  the  brow  bespeaks  intellect,  the  features  feel- 
ing and  refinement,  the  eye  madness.  The  stronger  parts 
of  character,  the  combative  and  propelling  forces,  he  evi- 

1  Our  acknowledgments  are  also  due  to  Mr.  Benham,  the  writer 
of  the  Memoir  prefixed  to  the  Globe  Edition  of  Cowper. 


i.]  EARLY  LIFE.  3 

dently  lacked  from  the  beginning.  For  the  battle  of  life 
he  was  totally  unfit.  His  judgment  in  its  healthy  state 
was,  even  on  practical  questions,  sound  enough,  as  his  let- 
ters abundantly  prove;  but  his  sensibility  not  only  ren- 
dered him  incapable  of  wrestling  with  a  rough  world,  but 
kept  him  always  on  the  verge  of  madness,  and  frequently 
plunged  him  into  it.  To  the  malady  which  threw  him 
out  of  active  life  we  owe  not  the  meanest  of  English 
poets. 

At  the  age  of  thirty-two,  writing  of  himself,  he  says,  "  I 
am  of  a  very  singular  temper,  and  very  unlike  all  the  men 
that  I  have  ever  conversed  with.  Certainly  I  am  not  an 
absolute  fool,  but  I  have  more  weakness  than  the  greatest 
of  all  the  fools  I  can  recollect  at  present.  In  short,  if  I 
was  as  fit  for  the  next  world  as  I  am  unfit  for  this — and 
God  forbid  I  should  speak  it  in  vanity  —  I  would  not 
change  conditions  with  any  saint  in  Christendom."  Folly 
produces  nothing  good,  and  if  Cowper  had  been  an  abso- 
lute fool,  he  would  not  have  written  good  poetry.  But  he 
does  not  exaggerate  his  own  weakness,  and  that  he  should 
have  become  a  power  among  men  is  a  remarkable  triumph 
of  the  influences  which  have  given  birth  to  Christian  civil- 
ization. 

The  world  into  which  the  child  came  was  one  very  ad- 
verse to  him,  and  at  the  same  time  very  much  in  need  of 
him.  It  was  a  world  from  which  the  spirit  of  poetry 
seemed  to  have  fled.  There  could  be  no  stronger  proof 
of  this  than  the  occupation  of  the  throne  of  Spenser, 
Shakspeare,  and  Milton  by  the  arch-versifier  Pope.  The 
Revolution  of  1688  was  glorious,  but  unlike  the  Puritan 
Revolution  which  it  followed,  and  in  the  political  sphere 
partly  ratified,  it  was  profoundly  prosaic.  Spiritual  relig- 
ion, the  source  of  Puritan  grandeur  and  of  the  poetry  of 
!*  16 


4  COWPER.  [chap. 

Milton,  was  almost  extinct;  there  was  not  much  more  of 
it  among  the  Nonconformists,  who  had  now  become  to  a 
great  extent  mere  Whigs,  with  a  decided  Unitarian  ten- 
dency. The  Church  was  little  better  than  a  political 
force,  cultivated  and  manipulated  by  political  leaders  for 
their  own  purposes.  The  Bishops  were  either  politicians 
or  theological  polemics  collecting  trophies  of  victory  over 
free-thinkers  as  titles  to  higher  preferment.  The  inferior 
clergy,  as  a  body,  were  far  nearer  in  character  to  Trulliber 
than  to  Dr.  Primrose ;  coarse,  sordid,  neglectful  of  their 
duties,  shamelessly  addicted  to  sinecurism  and  pluralities, 
fanatics  in  their  Toryism  and  in  attachment  to  their  cor- 
porate privileges,  cold,  rationalistic  and  almost  heathen  in 
their  preachings,  if  they  preached  at  all.  The  society  of 
the  day  is  mirrored  in  the  pictures  of  Hogarth,  in  the 
works  of  Fielding  and  Smollett ;  hard  and  heartless  polish 
was  the  best  of  it ;  and  not  a  little  of  it  was  Marriage  a 
la  Mode.  Chesterfield,  with  his  soulless  culture,  his  court 
graces,  and  his  fashionable  immoralities,  was  about  the 
highest  type  of  an  English  gentleman ;  but  the  Wilkeses, 
Potters,  and  Sandwiches,  whose  mania  for  vice  culminated 
in  the  Hell-fire  Club,  were  more  numerous  than  the  Ches- 
terfields. Among  the  country  squires,  for  one  Allworthy 
or  Sir  Roger  de  Coverley  there  were  many  Westerns. 
Among  the  common  people  religion  was  almost  extinct, 
and  assuredly  no  new  morality  or  sentiment,  such  as  Posi- 
tivists  now  promise,  had  taken  its  place.  Sometimes  the 
rustic  thought  for  himself,  and  scepticism  took  formal  pos- 
session of  his  mind ;  but,  as  we  see  from  one  of  Cowper's 
letters,  it  was  a  coarse  scepticism  which  desired  to  be  bur- 
ied with  its  hounds.  Ignorance  and  brutality  reigned  in 
the  cottage.  Drunkenness  reigned  in  palace  and  cottage 
alike.     Gambling,  cock-fighting,  and  bull-fighting  were  the 


i.]  EARLY  LIFE.  8 

amusements  of  the  people.  Political  life,  which,  if  it  had 
been  pure  and  vigorous,  might  have  made  up  for  the  ab- 
sence of  spiritual  influences,  was  corrupt  from  the  top  of 
the  scale  to  the  bottom  :  its  effect  on  national  character  is 
pourtrayed  in  Hogarth's  Election.  That  property  had  its 
duties  as  well  as  its  rights,  nobody  had  yet  ventured  to 
say  or  think.  The  duty  of  a  gentleman  towards  his  own 
class  was  to  pay  his  debts  of  honour  and  to  fight  a  duel 
whenever  he  was  challenged  by  one  of  his  own  order ;  to- 
wards the  lower  class  his  duty  was  none.  Though  the 
forms  of  government  were  elective,  and  Cowper  gives  us 
a  description  of  the  candidate  at  election-time  obsequious- 
ly soliciting  votes,  society  was  intensely  aristocratic,  and 
each  rank  was  divided  from  that  below  it  by  a  sharp  line 
which  precluded  brotherhood  or  sympathy.  Says  the 
Duchess  of  Buckingham  to  Lady  Huntingdon,  who  had 
asked  her  to  come  and  hear  Whitefield,  "  I  thank  your 
ladyship  for  the  information  concerning  the  Methodist 
preachers ;  their  doctrines  are  most  repulsive,  and  strong- 
ly tinctured  with  disrespect  towards  their  superiors,  in  per- 
petually endeavouring  to  level  all  ranks  and  do  away  with 
all  distinctions.  It  is  monstrous  to  be  told  you  have  a 
heart  as  sinful  as  the  common  wretches  that  crawl  on  the 
earth.  This  is  highly  offensive  and  insulting ;  and  I  can- 
not but  wonder  that  your  ladyship  should  relish  any  senti- 
ments so  much  at  variance  with  high  rank  and  good  breed- 
ing. I  shall  be  most  happy  to  come  and  hear  your  favour- 
ite preacher."  Her  Grace's  sentiments  towards  the  com- 
mon wretches  that  crawl  on  the  earth  were  shared,  we  may 
be  sure,  by  her  Grace's  waiting-maid.  Of  humanity  there 
was  as  little  as  there  was  of  religion.  It  was  the  age  of 
the  criminal  law  which  hanged  men  for  petty  thefts,  of 
life-long  imprisonment  for  debt,  of  the  stocks  and  the  pij- 


C  COWFER.  [chap. 

lory,  of  a  Temple  Bar  garnished  with  the  heads  of  traitors, 
of  the  unreformed  prison  system,  of  the  press-gang,  of  unre- 
strained tyranny  and  savagery  at  public  schools.  That  the 
slave-trade  was  iniquitous,  hardly  any  one  suspected  ;  even 
men  who  deemed  themselves  religious  took  part  in  it  with- 
out scruple.  But  a  change  was  at  hand,  and  a  still  mighti- 
er change  was  in  prospect.  At  the  time  of  Cowper's  birth, 
John  Wesley  was  twenty-eight,  and  Whitefield  was  seven- 
teen. With  them  the  revival  of  religion  was  at  hand.  John- 
son, the  moral  reformer,  was  twenty-two.  Howard  was  born, 
and  in  less  than  a  generation  Wilberforce  was  to  come. 

When  Cowper  was  six  years  old  his  mother  died;  and 
seldom  has  a  child,  even  such  a  child,  lost  more,  even  in  a 
mother.  Fifty  years  after  her  death  he  still  thinks  of  her, 
he  says,  with  love  and  tenderness  every  day.  Late  in  his 
life  his  cousin,  Mrs.  Anne  Bodham,  recalled  herself  to  his 
remembrance  by  sending  him  his  mother's  picture.  "  Ev- 
ery creature,"  he  writes, "  that  has  any  affinity  to  my  moth- 
er is  dear  to  me,  and  you,  the  daughter  of  her  brother,  are 
but  one  remove  distant  from  her ;  I  love  you  therefore,  and 
love  you  much,  both  for  her  sake  and  for  your  own.  The 
world  could  not  have  furnished  you  with  a  present  so  ac- 
ceptable to  me  as  the  picture  which  you  have  so  kindly 
sent  me.  I  received  it  the  night  before  last,  and  received 
it  with  a  trepidation  of  nerves  and  spirits  somewhat  akin 
to  what  I  should  have  felt  had  its  dear  original  presented 
herself  to  my  embraces.  I  kissed  it,  and  hung  it  where  it 
is  the  last  object  which  I  see  at  night,  and  the  first  on 
which  I  open  my  eyes  in  the  morning.  She  died  when 
I  completed  my  sixth  year;  yet  I  remember  her  well, 
and  am  an  ocular  witness  of  the  great  fidelity  of  the  copy. 
I  remember,  too,  a  multitude  of  the  maternal  tendernesses 
which  I  received  from  her,  and  which  have  endeared  her 


i.]  EARLY  LITE.  7 

memory  to  me  beyond  expression.  There  is  in  me,  I  be- 
lieve, more  of  the  Donne  than  of  the  Cowper,  and  though 
I  love  all  of  both  names,  and  have  a  thousand  reasons  to 
love  those  of  my  own  name,  yet  I  feel  the  bond  of  nature 
draw  me  vehemently  to  your  side."  As  Cowper  never 
married,  there  was  nothing  to  take  the  place  in  his  heart 
which  had  been  left  vacant  by  his  mother. 

"  My  mother!  when  I  learn'd  that  thou  wast  dead, 
Say,  wast  thou  conscious  of  the  tears  I  shed  ? 
Hover'd  thy  spirit  o'er  thy  sorrowing  son, 
Wretch  even  then,  life's  journey  just  begun  ? 
Perhaps  thou  gav'st  me,  though  unfelt,  a  kiss ; 
Perhaps  a  tear,  if  souls  can  weep  in  bliss — 
Ah,  that  m  vernal  smile! — it  answers — Yes. 
I  heard  the  bell  toll'd  on  thy  burial  day, 
I  saw  the  hearse  that  bore  thee  slow  away, 
And,  turning  from  my  nursery  window,  drew 
A  long,  long  sigh,  and  wept  a  last  adieu ! 
But  was  it  such  ? — It  was. — Where  thou  art  gone 
Adieus  and  farewells  are  a  sound  unknown. 
May  I  but  meet  thee  on  that  peaceful  shore, 
The  parting  word  shall  pass  my  lips  no  more ! 
Thy  maidens,  grieved  themselves  at  my  concern, 
Oft  gave  me  promise  of  thy  quick  return. 
What  ardently  I  wish'd,  I  long  believed, 
And  disappointed  still,  was  still  deceived ; 
By  expectation  every  day  beguiled, 
Dupe  of  to-morrow  even  from  a  child. 
Thus  many  a  sad  to-morrow  came  and  went, 
Till,  all  my  stock  of  infant  sorrows  spent, 
I  learn'd  at  last  submission  to  my  lot, 
But,  though  I  less  deplored  thee,  ne'er  forgot." 

In  the  years  that  followed  no  doubt  he  remembered  her 
too  well.     At  six  years  of  age  this  little  mass  of  timid  and 


8  COWPER.  [chap. 

quivering  sensibility  was,  in  accordance  with  the  cruel  cus- 
tom of  the  time,  sent  to  a  large  boarding  -  school.  The 
change  from  home  to  a  boarding-school  is  bad  enough 
now ;  it  was  much  worse  in  those  days. 

"  I  had  hardships,"  says  Cowper,  "  of  various  kinds  to 
conflict  with,  which  I  felt  more  sensibly  in  proportion  to 
the  tenderness  with  which  I  had  been  treated  at  home. 
But  my  chief  affliction  consisted  in  my  being  singled  out 
from  all  the  other  boys  by  a  lad  of  about  fifteen  years  of 
age  as  a  proper  object  upon  whom  he  might  let  loose  the 
cruelty  of  his  temper.  I  choose  to  conceal  a  particular 
recital  of  the  many  acts  of  barbarity  with  which  he  made 
it  his  business  continually  to  persecute  me.  It  will  be  suf- 
ficient to  say  that  his  savage  treatment  of  me  impressed 
such  a  dread  of  his  figure  upon  my  mind,  that  I  well  re- 
member being  afraid  to  lift  my  eyes  upon  him  higher  than 
to  his  knees,  and  that  I  knew  him  better  by  his  shoe-buc- 
kles than  by  any  other  part  of  his  dress.  May  the  Lord 
pardon  him,  and  may  we  meet  in  glory !"  Cowper  charges 
himself,  it  may  be  in  the  exaggerated  style  of  a  self-accus- 
ing saint,  with  having  become  at  school  an  adept  in  the 
art  of  lying.  Southey  says  this  must  be  a  mistake,  since 
at  English  public  schools  boys  do  not  learn  to  lie.  But 
the  mistake  is  on  Southey's  part ;  bullying,  such  as  this 
child  endured,  while  it  makes  the  strong  boys  tyrants, 
makes  the  weak  boys  cowards,  and  teaches  them  to  defend 
themselves  by  deceit,  the  fist  of  the  weak.  The  recollec- 
tion of  this  boarding-school  mainly  it  was  that  at  a  later 
day  inspired  the  plea  for  a  home  education  in  Tirocinium. 

"Then  why  resign  into  a  stranger's  hand 
A  task  as  much  within  your  own  command, 
That  God  and  nature,  and  your  interest  too, 
Seem  with  one  voice  to  delegate  to  you  f 


l]  EARLY  LIFE.  9 

Why  hire  a  lodging  in  a  house  unknown 

For  one  whose  tenderest  thoughts  all  hover  round  your 

own? 
This  second  weaning,  needless  as  it  is, 
How  does  it  lacerate  both  your  heart  and  his ! 
The  indented  stick  that  loses  day  by  day 
Notch  after  notch,  till  all  are  smooth'd  away, 
Bears  witness  long  ere  his  dismission  come, 
With  what  intense  desire  he  wants  his  home. 
But  though  the  joys  he  hopes  beneath  your  roof 
Bid  fair  enongh  to  answer  in  the  proof, 
Harmless,  and  safe,  and  natural  as  they  are, 
A  disappointment  waits  him  even  there : 
Arrived,  he  feels  an  unexpected  change, 
He  blushes,  hangs  his  head,  is  shy  and  strange. 
No  longer  takes,  as  once,  with  fearless  ease, 
His  favourite  stand  between  his  father's  knees, 
But  seeks  the  corner  of  some  distant  seat, 
And  eyes  the  door,  and  watches  a  retreat, 
And,  least  familiar  where  he  should  be  most, 
Feels  all  his  happiest  privileges  lost. 
Alas,  poor  boy ! — the  natural  effect 
Of  love  by  absence  chill'd  into  respect." 

From  the  boarding-school,  the  boy,  his  eyes  being  liable 
to  inflammation,  was  sent  to  live  with  an  oculist,  in  whose 
house  he  spent  two  years,  enjoying  at  all  events  a  respite 
from  the  sufferings  and  the  evils  of  the  boarding-school. 
He  was  then  sent  to  Westminster  School,  at  that  time  in 
its  glory.  That  Westminster  in  those  days  must  have 
been  a  scene  not  merely  of  hardship,  but  of  cruel  suffer- 
ing and  degradation  to  the  younger  and  weaker  boys,  has 
been  proved  by  the  researches  of  the  Public  Schools  Com- 
mission. There  was  an  established  system  and  a  regular 
vocabulary  of  bullying.     Yet  Cowper  seems  not  to  have 


10  COWPER.  [chap. 

been  so  unhappy  there  as  at  the  private  school ;  he  speaks 
of  himself  as  having  excelled  at  cricket  and  football ;  and 
excellence  in  cricket  and  football  at  a  public  school  gen- 
erally carries  with  it,  besides  health  and  enjoyment,  not 
merely  immunity  from  bullying,  but  high  social  consider- 
ation. With  all  Cowper's  delicacy  and  sensitiveness,  he 
must  have  had  a  certain  fund  of  physical  strength,  or  he 
could  hardly  have  borne  the  literary  labour  of  his  later 
years,  especially  as  he  was  subject  to  the  medical  treat- 
ment of  a  worse  than  empirical  era.  At  one  time  he  says, 
while  he  was  at  Westminster,  his  spirits  were  so  buoyant 
that  he  fancied  he  should  never  die,  till  a  skull  thrown  out 
before  him  by  a  grave-digger  as  he  was  passing  through 
St.  Margaret's  churchyard  in  the  night  recalled  him  to  a 
sense  of  his  mortality. 

The  instruction  at  a  public  school  in  those  days  was 
exclusively  classical.  Cowper  was  under  Vincent  Bourne, 
his  portrait  of  whom  is  in  some  respects  a  picture  not 
only  of  its  immediate  subject,  but  of  the  school-master  of 
the  last  century.  "  I  love  the  memory  of  Vinny  Bourne. 
I  think  him  a  better  Latin  poet  than  Tibullus,  Propertius, 
Ausonius,  or  any  of  the  writers  in  his  way,  except  Ovid, 
and  not  at  all  inferior  to  him.  I  love  him  too  with  a  love 
of  partiality,  because  he  was  usher  of  the  fifth  form  at 
Westminster  when  I  passed  through  it.  He  was  so  good- 
natured  and  so  indolent  that  I  lost  more  than  I  got  by  him,, 
for  he  made  me  as  idle  as  himself.  He  was  such  a  sloven, 
as  if  he  had  trusted  to  his  genius  as  a  cloak  for  every- 
thing that  could  disgust  you  in  his  person ;  and  indeed  in 
his  writings  he  has  almost  made  amends  for  all.  ...  I  re- 
member seeing  the  Duke  of  Richmond  set  fire  to  his 
greasy  locks,  and  box  his  ears  to  put  it  out  again."  Cow- 
per learned,  if  not  to  write  Latin  verses  as  well  as  Vinny 


i.]  EARLY  LIFE.  11 

Bourne  himself,  to  write  them  very  well,  as  his  Latin  ver- 
sions of  some  of  his  own  short  poems  bear  witness.  Not 
only  so,  but  he  evidently  became  a  good  classical  scholar, 
as  classical  scholarship  was  in  those  days,  and  acquired 
the  literary  form  of  which  the  classics  are  the  best  school. 
Out  of  school  ho"  i  he  studied  independently,  as  clevei 
boys  under  the  nexacting  rule  of  the  old  public  schools 
often  did,  ar  read  through  the  whole  of  the  Iliad  and 
Odyssey  w;  i  a  friend.  He  also,  probably,  picked  up  at 
Westminster  much  of  the  little  knowledge  of  the  world 
which  he  ever  possessed.  Among  his  school-fellows  was 
Warren  Hastings,  in  whose  guilt  as  proconsul  he  after- 
wards, for  the  sake  of  Auld  Lang  Syne,  refused  to  believe, 
and  Impey,  whose  character  has  had  the  ill-fortune  to  be 
required  as  the  shade  in  Macaulay's  fancy  picture  of  Hast- 
ings. 

On  leaving  Westminster,  Cowper,  at  eighteen,  went  to 
live  with  Mr.  Chapman,  an  attorney,  to  whom  he  was  arti- 
cled, being  destined  for  the  Law.  He  chose  that  profes- 
sion, he  says,  not  of  his  own  accord,  but  to  gratify  an  in- 
dulgent father,  who  may  have  been  led  into  the  error  by  a 
recollection  of  the  legal  honours  of  the  family,  as  well  as 
by  the  "  silver  pence "  which  his  promising  son  had  won 
by  his  Latin  verses  at  Westminster  School.  The  youth 
duly  slept  at  the  attorney's  house  in  Ely  Place.  His 
days  were  spent  in  "giggling  and  making  giggle"  with 
his  cousins,  Theodora  and  Harriet,  the  daughters  of  Ash- 
ley Cowper,  in  the  neighbouring  Southampton  Row.  Ash- 
ley Cowper  was  a  very  little  man,  in  a  white  hat  lined  with 
yellow,  and  his  nephew  used  to  say  that  he  would  one  day 
be  picked  by  mistake  for  a  mushroom.  His  fellow-clerk 
in  the  office,  and  his  accomplice  in  giggling  and  making 
giggle,  was  one  strangely  mated  with  him ;  the  strong,  as- 
B 


12  COWPER.  [chap. 

piring,  and  unscrupulous  Thurlow,  who,  though  fond  of 
pleasure,  was  at  the  same  time  preparing  himself  to  push 
his  way  to  wealth  and  power.  Cowper  felt  that  Thurlow 
would  reach  the  summit  of  ambition,  while  he  would  him- 
self remain  below,  and  made  his  friend  promise  when  he 
was  Chancellor  to  give  him  something.  When  Thurlow 
was  Chancellor,  he  gave  Cowper  his  advice  on  translating 
Homer. 

At  the  end  of  his  three  years  with  the  attorney,  Cowper 
took  chambers  in  the  Middle,  from  which  he  afterwards 
removed  to  the  Inner  Temple.  The  Temple  is  now  a  pile 
of  law  offices.  In  those  days  it  was  still  a  Society.  One 
of  Cowper's  set  says  of  it:  "The  Temple  is  the  barrier 
that  divides  the  City  and  Suburbs;  and  the  gentlemen 
who  reside  there  seem  influenced  by  the  situation  of  the 
place  they  inhabit.  Templars  are  in  general  a  kind  of 
citizen  courtiers.  They  aim  at  the  air  and  the  mien  of 
the  drawing-room;  but  the  holy-day  smoothness  of  a 
'prentice,  heightened  with  some  additional  touches  of  the 
rake  or  coxcomb,  betrays  itself  in  everything  they  do. 
The  Temple,  however,  is  stocked  with  its  peculiar  beaux, 
wits,  poets,  critics,  and  every  character  in  the  gay  world ; 
and  it  is  a  thousand  pities  that  so  pretty  a  society  should 
be  disgraced  with  a  few  dull  fellows,  who  can  submit  to 
puzzle  themselves  with  cases  and  reports,  and  have  not 
taste  enough  to  follow  the  genteel  method  of  studying  the 
law."  Cowper,  at  all  events,  studied  law  by  the  genteel 
method ;  he  read  it  almost  as  little  in  the  Temple  as  he 
had  in  the  attorney's  office,  though  in  due  course  of  time 
he  was  formally  called  to  the  Bar,  and  even  managed  in 
some  way  to  acquire  a  reputation  which,  when  he  had  en- 
tirely given  up  the  profession,  brought  him  a  curious  offer 
of  a  readership  at  Lyons  Inn.     His  time  was  given  to  lit- 


I.]  EARLY  LIFE.  13 

erature,  and  he  became  a  member  of  a  little  circle  of  men 
of  letters  and  journalists  which  had  its  social  centre  in  the 
Nonsense  Club,  consisting  of  seven  Westminster  men  who 
dined  together  every  Thursday.  In  the  set  were  Bonnell 
Thornton  and  Colman,  twin  wits ;  fellow-writers  of  the  pe- 
riodical essays  which  were  the  rage  in  that  day ;  joint  pro- 
prietors of  the  St.  James's  Chronicle;  contributors  both  of 
them  to  the  Connoisseur;  and  translators,  Colman  of  Ter- 
ence, Bonnell  Thornton  of  Plautus,  Colman  being  a  drama- 
tist besides.  In  the  set  was  Lloyd,  another  wit  and  essay- 
ist and  a  poet,  with  a  character  not  of  the  best.  On  the 
edge  of  the  set,  but  apparently  not  in  it,  was  Churchill, 
who  was  then  running  a  course  which  to  many  seemed 
meteoric,  and  of  whose  verse,  sometimes  strong  but  always 
turbid,  Cowper  conceived  and  retained  an  extravagant  ad- 
miration. Churchill  was  a  link  to  Wilkes ;  Hogarth,  too, 
was  an  ally  of  Colman,  and  helped  him  in  his  exhibition 
of  Signs.  The  set  was  strictly  confined  to  Westminsters. 
Gray  and  Mason,  being  Etonians,  were  objects  of  its  litera- 
ry hostility,  and  butts  of  its  satire.  It  is  needless  to  say 
much  about  these  literary  companions  of  Cowper's  youth ; 
his  intercourse  with  them  was  totally  broken  off ;  and  be- 
fore he  himself  became  a  poet  its  effects  had  been  obliter- 
ated by  madness,  entire  change  of  mind,  and  the  lapse  of 
twenty  years.  If  a  trace  remained,  it  was  in  his  admira- 
tion of  Churchill's  verses,  and  in  the  general  results  of  lit- 
erary society,  and  of  early  practice  in  composition.  Cow- 
per contributed  to  the  Connoisseur  and  the  St.  James's 
Chronicle.  His  papers  in  the  Connoisseur  have  been  pre- 
served ;  they  are  mainly  imitations  of  the  lighter  papers 
of  the  Spectator  by  a  student  who  affects  the  man  of  the 
world.  He  also  dallied  with  poetry,  writing  verses  to 
"  Delia,"  and  an  epistle  to  Lloyd.     He  had  translated  an 


14  COWPER.  [chap. 

elegy  of  Tibullus  when  he  was  fourteen,  and  at  Westmin- 
ster he  had  written  an  imitation  of  Phillips's  Splendid 
Shilling,  which,  Southey  says,  shows  hi6  manner  formed. 
He  helped  his  Cambridge  brother,  John  Cowper,  in  a 
translation  of  the  Henriade.  He  kept  up  his  classics,  es- 
pecially his  Homer.  In  his  letters  there  are  proofs  of  his 
familiarity  with  Rousseau.  Two  or  three  ballads  which 
he  wrote  are  lost,  but  he  says  they  were  popular,  and  we 
may  believe  him.  Probably  they  were  patriotic.  "  When 
poor  Bob  White,"  he  says,  "  brought  in  the  news  of  Bos- 
cawen's  success  off  the  coast  of  Portugal,  how  did  I  leap 
for  joy !  When  Hawke  demolished  Conflans,  I  was  still 
more  transported.  But  nothing  could  express  my  rapture 
when  Wolfe  made  the  conquest  of  Quebec." 

The  "Delia"  to  whom  Cowper  wrote  verses  was  his 
cousin  Theodora,  with  whom  he  had  an  unfortunate  love 
affair.  Her  father,  Ashley  Cowper,  forbade  their  mar- 
riage, nominally  on  the  ground  of  consanguinity ;  really, 
as  Southey  thinks,  because  he  saw  Cowper's  unfitness  for 
business,  and  inability  to  maintain  a  wife.  Cowper  felt 
the  disappointment  deeply  at  the  time,  as  well  he  might 
do  if  Theodora  resembled  her  sister,  Lady  Hesketh.  The- 
odora remained  unmarried,  and,  as  we  shall  see,  did  not 
forget  her  lover.  His  letters  she  preserved  till  her  death 
in  extreme  old  age. 

In  1756  Cowper's  father  died.  There  does  not  seem  to 
have  been  much  intercourse  between  them,  nor  does  the 
son  in  after-years  speak  with  any  deep  feeling  of  his  loss : 
possibly  his  complaint  in  Tirocinium  of  the  effect  of  board- 
ing-schools, in  estranging  children  from  their  parents,  may 
have  had  some  reference  to  his  own  case.  His  local  affec- 
tions, however,  were  very  strong,  and  he  felt  with  unusual 
keenness  the  final  parting  from  his  old  home,  and  the  pang 


i.]  EARLY  LIFE.  16 

of  thinking  that  strangers  usurp  our  dwelling  and  the  fa- 
miliar places  will  know  us  no  more. 

"  Where  once  we  dwelt  our  name  is  heard  no  more, 
Children  not  thine  have  trod  my  nursery  floor; 
And  where  the  gardener  Robin,  day  by  day, 
Drew  me  to  school  along  the  public  way, 
Delighted  with  my  bauble  coach,  and  wrapp'd 
In  scarlet  mantle  warm  and  velvet  capp'd. 
'Tis  now  become  a  history  little  known, 
That  once  we  call'd  the  pastoral  house  our  own." 

Before  the  rector's  death,  it  seems,  his  pen  had  hardly 
realized  the  cruel  frailty  of  the  tenure  by  which  a  home  in 
a  parsonage  is  held.  Of  the  family  of  Burkhampstead 
Rectory  there  was  now  left  besides  himself  only  his  broth- 
er John  Cowper,  Fellow  of  Caius  College,  Cambridge,  whose 
birth  had  cost  their  mother's  life. 

When  Cowper  was  thirty -two,  and  still  living  in  the 
Temple,  came  the  sad  and  decisive  crisis  of  his  life.  He 
went  mad,  and  attempted  suicide.  What  was  the  source  of 
his  madness  ?  There  is  a  vague  tradition  that  it  arose  from 
licentiousness,  which,  no  doubt,  is  sometimes  the  cause  of 
insanity.  But  in  Cowper's  case  there  is  no  proof  of  any- 
thing of  the  kind :  his  confessions,  after  his  conversion,  of 
his  own  past  sinfulness  point  to  nothing  worse  than  gen- 
eral ungodliness  and  occasional  excess  in  wine ;  and  the  tra- 
dition derives  a  colour  of  probability  only  from  the  loose 
lives  of  one  or  two  of  the  wits  and  Bohemians  with  whom 
he  had  lived.  His  virtuous  love  of  Theodora  was  scarce- 
ly compatible  with  low  and  gross  amours.  Generally,  his 
madness  is  said  to  have  been  religious,  and  the  blame  is 
laid  on  the  same  foe  to  human  weal  as  that  of  the  sacrifice 
of  Iphigenia.     But  when  he  first  went  mad,  his  conversion 


10  COWPER.  [chap. 

to  Evangelicism  had  not  taken  place ;  he  had  not  led  a  par- 
ticularly religious  life,  nor  been  greatly  given  to  religious 
practices,  though  as  a  clergyman's  son  he  naturally  be- 
lieved in  religion,  had  at  times  felt  religious  emotions, 
and  when  he  found  his  heart  sinking  had  tried  devotional 
books  and  prayers.  The  truth  is,  his  malady  was  simple 
hypochondria,  having  its  source  in  delicacy  of  constitution 
and  weakness  of  digestion,  combined  with  the  influence  of 
melancholy  surroundings.  It  had  begun  to  attack  him 
soon  after  his  settlement  in  his  lonely  chambers  in  the 
Temple,  when  his  pursuits  and  associations,  as  we  have 
seen,  were  far  from  Evangelical.  When  its  crisis  arrived, 
he  was  living  by  himself  without  any  society  of  the  kind 
that  suited  him  (for  the  excitement  of  the  Nonsense  Club 
was  sure  to  be  followed  by  reaction) ;  he  had  lost  his  love, 
his  father,  his  home,  and,  as  it  happened,  also  a  dear  friend ; 
his  little  patrimony  was  fast  dwindling  away;  he  must 
have  despaired  of  success  in  his  profession ;  and  his  out- 
look was  altogether  dark.  It  yielded  to  the  remedies  to 
which  hypochondria  usually  yields — air,  exercise,  sunshine, 
cheerful  society,  congenial  occupation.  It  came  with  Jan- 
uary and  went  with  May.  Its  gathering  gloom  was  dis- 
pelled for  a  time  by  a  stroll  in  fine  weather  on  the  hills 
above  Southampton  Water,  and  Cowper  said  that  he  was 
never  unhappy  for  a  whole  day  in  the  company  of  Lady 
Hesketh.  When  he  had  become  a  Methodist,  his  hypo- 
chondria took  a  religious  form,  but  so  did  his  recovery 
from  hypochondria;  both  must  be  set  down  to  the  ac- 
count of  his  faith,  or  neither.  This  double  aspect  of  the 
matter  will  plainly  appear  further  on.  A  votary  of  wealth, 
when  his  brain  gives  way  under  disease  or  age,  fancies 
that  he  is  a  beggar.  A  Methodist,  when  his  brain  gives 
way  under  the  same   influences,  fancies  that  he  is  for- 


t]  EAELY  LIFE.  17 

saken  of  God.     In  both  cases  the  root  of  the  malady  is 
physical. 

In  the  lines  which  Cowper  sent  on  his  disappointment 
to  Theodora's  sister,  and  which  record  the  sources  of  his 
despondency,  there  is  not  a  touch  of  religious  despair,  or 
of  anything  connected  with  religion.  The  catastrophe  was 
brought  on  by  an  incident  with  which  religion  had  noth- 
ing to  do.  The  office  of  clerk  of  the  Journals  in  the  House 
of  Lords  fell  vacant,  and  was  in  the  gift  of  Cowper's  kins- 
man, Major  Cowper,  as  patentee.  Cowper  received  the 
nomination.  He  had  longed  for  the  office  sinfully,  as  he 
afterwards  fancied ;  it  would  exactly  have  suited  him,  and 
made  him  comfortable  for  life.  But  his  mind  had  by  this 
time  succumbed  to  his  malady.  His  fancy  conjured  up 
visions  of  opposition  to  the  appointment  in  the  House  of 
Lords ;  of  hostility  in  the  office  where  he  had  to  study  the 
Journals;  of  the  terrors  of  an  examination  to  be  under- 
gone before  the  frowning  peers.  After  hopelessly  poring 
over  the  Journals  for  some  months  he  became  quite  mad, 
and  his  madness  took  a  suicidal  form.  He  has  told  with 
unsparing  exactness  the  story  of  his  attempts  to  kill  him- 
self. In  his  youth  his  father  had  unwisely  given  him  a 
treatise  in  favour  of  suicide  to  read,  and  when  he  argued 
against  it,  had  listened  to  his  reasonings  in  a  silence  which 
he  construed  as  sympathy  with  the  writer,  though  it  seems 
to  have  been  only  unwillingness  to  think  too  badly  of  the 
state  of  a  departed  friend.  This  now  recurred  to  his  mind, 
and  talk  with  casual  companions  in  taverns  and  chop- 
houses  was  enough  in  his  present  condition  to  confirm  him 
in  his  belief  that  self-destruction  was  lawful.  Evidently 
he  was  perfectly  insane,  for  he  could  not  take  up  a  news- 
paper without  reading  in  it  a  fancied  libel  on  himself. 
First  he  bought  laudanum,  and  had  gone  out  into  the 


18  COWPER.  [chap. 

fields  with  the  intention  of  swallowing  it,  when  the  love  of 
life  suggested  another  way  of  escaping  the  dreadful  ordeal. 
He  might  sell  all  he  had,  fly  to  France,  change  his  religion, 
and  bury  himself  in  a  monastery.  He  went  home  to  pack 
up ;  but  while  he  was  looking  over  his  portmanteau,  his 
mood  changed,  and  he  again  resolved  on  self-destruction. 
Taking  a  coach,  he  ordered  the  coachman  to  drive  to  the 
Tower  Wharf,  intending  to  throw  himself  into  the  river. 
But  the  love  of  life  once  more  interposed,  under  the  guise 
of  a  low  tide  and  a  porter  seated  on  the  quay.  Again  in 
the  coach,  and  afterwards  in  his  chambers,  he  tried  to  swal- 
low the  laudanum ;  but  his  hand  was  paralysed  by  "  the 
convincing  Spirit,"  aided  by  seasonable  interruptions  from 
the  presence  of  his  laundress  and  her  husband,  and  at 
length  he  threw  the  laudanum  away.  On  the  night  before 
the  day  appointed  for  the  examination  before  the  Lords, 
he  lay  some  time  with  the  point  of  his  penknife  pressed 
against  his  heart,  but  without  courage  to  drive  it  home. 
Lastly,  he  tried  to  hang  himself ;  and  on  this  occasion  he 
seems  to  have  been  saved  not  by  the  love  of  life,  or  by 
want  of  resolution,  but  by  mere  accident.  He  had  become 
insensible,  when  the  garter  by  which  he  was  suspended 
broke,  and  his  fall  brought  in  the  laundress,  who  supposed 
him  to  be  in  a  fit.  He  sent  her  to  a  friend,  to  whom  he 
related  all  that  had  passed,  and  despatched  him  to  his  kins- 
man. His  kinsman  arrived,  listened  with  horror  to  the 
story,  made  more  vivid  by  the  sight  of  the  broken  garter, 
saw  at  once  that  all  thought  of  the  appointment  was  at 
end,  and  carried  away  the  instrument  of  nomination.  Let 
those  whom  despondency  assails  read  this  passage  of  Cow- 
per's  life,  and  remember  that  he  lived  to  write  John  Gil- 
pin and  The  Task. 
Cowper  tells  us  that  "  to  this  moment  he  had  felt  no 


I.]  EARLY  LIFE.  19 

concern  of  a  spiritual  kind ;"  that  "  ignorant  of  original 
sin,  insensible  of  the  guilt  of  actual  transgression,  he  un- 
derstood neither  the  Law  nor  the  Gospel;  the  condem- 
ning nature  of  the  one,  nor  the  restoring  mercies  of  the 
other."  But  after  attempting  suicide  he  was  seized,  as  he 
well  might  be,  with  religious  horrors.  Now  it  was  that  he 
began  to  ask  himself  whether  he  had  been  guilty  of  the 
unpardonable  sin,  and  was  presently  persuaded  that  he 
had,  though  it  would  be  vain  to  inquire  what  he  imagined 
the  unpardonable  sin  to  be.  In  this  mood,  he  fancied  that 
if  there  was  any  balm  for  him  in  Gilead,  it  would  be  found 
in  the  ministrations  of  his  friend  Martin  Madan,  an  Evan- 
gelical clergyman  of  high  repute,  whom  he  had  been  wont 
to  regard  as  an  enthusiast.  His  Cambridge  brother,  John, 
the  translator  of  the  Henriade,  seems  to  have  had  some  phil- 
osophic doubts  as  to  the  efficacy  of  the  proposed  remedy ; 
but,  like  a  philosopher,  he  consented  to  the  experiment. 
Mr.  Madan  came  and  ministered,  but  in  that  distempered 
soul  his  balm  turned  to  poison ;  his  religious  conversations 
only  fed  the  horrible  illusion.  A  set  of  English  Sapphics, 
written  by  Cowper  at  this  time,  and  expressing  his  despair, 
were  unfortunately  preserved;  they  are  a  ghastly  play  of 
the  poetic  faculty  in  a  mind  utterly  deprived  of  self-con- 
trol, and  amidst  the  horrors  of  inrushing  madness.  Dia- 
bolical they  might  be  termed  more  truly  than  religious. 

There  was  nothing  for  it  but  a  madhouse.  The  sufferer 
was  consigned  to  the  private  asylum  of  Dr.  Cotton,  at  St. 
Alban's.  An  ill-chosen  physician  Dr.  Cotton  would  have 
been,  if  the  malady  had  really  had  its  source  in  religion ; 
for  he  was  himself  a  pious  man,  a  writer  of  hymns,  and 
was  in  the  habit  of  holding  religious  intercourse  with  his 
patients.  Cowper,  after  his  recovery,  speaks  of  that  inter- 
course with  the  keenest  pleasure  and  gratitude ;  so  that, 
S  17 


20  COWPER.  [chap. 

in  the  opinion  of  the  two  persons  best  qualified  to  judge, 
religion  in  this  case  was  not  the  bane.  Cowper  has  given 
us  a  full  account  of  his  recovery.  It  was  brought  about, 
as  we  can  plainly  see,  by  medical  treatment  wisely  applied ; 
but  it  came  in  the  form  of  a  burst  of  religious  faith  and 
hope.  He  rises  one  morning  feeling  better ;  grows  cheer- 
ful over  his  breakfast,  takes  up  the  Bible,  which  in  his 
fits  of  madness  he  always  threw  aside,  and  turns  to  a  verse 
in  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans.  "  Immediately  I  received 
strength  to  believe,  and  the  full  beams  of  the  Sun  of 
Righteousness  shone  upon  me.  I  saw  the  sufficiency  of 
the  atonement  He  had  made,  my  pardon  in  His  blood,  and 
the  fulness  and  completeness  of  His  justification.  In  a 
moment  I  believed  and  received  the  Gospel."  Cotton  at 
first  mistrusted  the  sudden  change ;  but  he  was  at  length 
satisfied,  pronounced  his  patient  cured,  and  discharged  him 
from  the  asylum,  after  a  detention  of  eighteen  months. 
Cowper  hymned  his  deliverance  in  The  Happy  Change,  as 
in  the  hideous  Sapphics  he  had  given  religious  utterance 
to  his  despair. 

"  The  soul,  a  dreary  province  once 
Of  Satan's  dark  domain, 
Feels  a  new  empire  form'd  within, 
And  owns  a  heavenly  reign. 

"  The  glorious  orb  whose  golden  beams 
The  fruitful  year  control, 
Since  first  obedient  to  Thy  word, 
He  started  from  the  goal, 

"  Has  cheer'd  the  nations  with  the  joys 
His  orient  rays  impart ; 
But,  Jesus,  'tis  Thy  light  alone 
Can  shine  upon  the  heart." 


Lj  EARLY  LIFE.  21 

Once  for  all,  the  reader  of  Cowper's  life  must  make  up 
his  mind  to  acquiesce  in  religious  forms  of  expression.  If 
he  does  not  sympathize  with  them,  he  will  recognize  them 
as  phenomena  of  opinion,  and  bear  them  like  a  philosopher. 
He  can  easily  translate  them  into  the  language  of  psychol- 
ogy, or  even  of  physiology,  if  he  thinks  fit. 


CHAPTER  H. 

AT   HUNTINGDON — THE    UNWINS. 

The  storm  was  over ;  but  it  had  swept  away  a  great  part 
of  Cowper's  scanty  fortune,  and  almost  all  his  friends.  At 
thirty-five  he  was  stranded  and  desolate.  He  was  obliged 
to  resign  a  Commissionership  of  Bankruptcy  which  he  held, 
and  little  seems  to  have  remained  to  him  but  the  rent  of 
his  chambers  in  the  Temple.  A  return  to  his  profession 
was,  of  course,  out  of  the  question.  His  relations,  how- 
ever, combined  to  make  up  a  little  income  for  him,  though 
from  a  hope  of  his  family,  he  had  become  a  melancholy 
disappointment ;  even  the  Major  contributing,  in  spite  of 
the  rather  trying  incident  of  the  nomination.  His  brother 
was  kind,  and  did  a  brother's  duty,  but  there  does  not  seem 
to  have  been  much  sympathy  between  them ;  John  Cow- 
per  did  not  become  a  convert  to  Evangelical  doctrine  till 
he  was  near  his  end,  and  he  was  incapable  of  sharing  Wil- 
liam's spiritual  emotions.  Of  his  brilliant  companions,  the 
Bonnell  Thorntons  and  the  Colmans,  the  quondam  mem- 
bers of  the  Nonsense  Club,  he  heard  no  more,  till  he  had 
himself  become  famous.  But  he  still  had  a  staunch  friend 
in  a  less  brilliant  member  of  the  club,  Joseph  Hill,  the  law- 
yer, evidently  a  man  who  united  strong  sense  and  depth  of 
character  with  literary  tastes  and  love  of  fun,  and  who  was 
throughout  Cowper's  life  his  Mentor  in  matters  of  busi- 


chap,  ii.]  AT  HUNTINGDON— THE  UNWINS.  23 

ness,  with  regard  to  which  he  was  himself  a  child.  He 
had  brought  with  him  from  the  asylum  at  St.  Alban's  the 
servant  who  had  attended  him  there,  and  who  had  been 
drawn  by  the  singular  talisman  of  personal  attraction  which 
partly  made  up  to  this  frail  and  helpless  being  for  his  en- 
tire lack  of  force.  He  had  also  brought  from  the  same 
place  an  outcast  boy  whose  case  had  excited  his  interest, 
and  for  whom  he  afterwards  provided  by  putting  him  to  a 
trade.  The  maintenance  of  these  two  retainers  was  expen- 
sive, and  led  to  grumbling  among  the  subscribers  to  the 
family  subsidy,  the  Major  especially  threatening  to  with- 
draw his  contribution.  While  the  matter  was  in  agitation, 
Cowper  received  an  anonymous  letter  couched  in  the  kind- 
est terms,  bidding  him  not  distress  himself,  for  that  what- 
ever deduction  from  his  income  might  be  made,  the  loss 
would  be  supplied  by  one  who  loved  him  tenderly  and  ap- 
proved his  conduct.  In  a  letter  to  Lady  Hesketh,  he  says 
that  he  wishes  he  knew  who  dictated  this  letter,  and  that 
he  had  seen  not  long  before  a  style  excessively  like  it. 
He  can  scarcely  have  failed  to  guess  that  it  came  from 
Theodora. 

It  is  due  to  Cowper  to  say  that  he  accepts  the  assistance 
of  his  relatives,  and  all  acts  of  kindness  done  to  him,  with 
sweet  and  becoming  thankfulness ;  and  that  whatever  dark 
fancies  he  may  have  had  about  his  religious  state,  when 
the  evil  spirit  was  upon  him,  he  always  speaks  with  con- 
tentment and  cheerfulness  of  his  earthly  lot.  Nothing 
splenetic,  no  element  of  suspicious  and  irritable  self-love 
entered  into  the  composition  of  his  character. 

On  his  release  from  the  asylum  he  was  taken  in  hand 
by  his  brother  John,  who  first  tried  to  find  lodgings  for 
him  at  or  near  Cambridge,  and,  failing  in  this,  placed  him 
at  Huntingdon,  within  a  long  ride,  so  that  William  becom- 


24  COWPER.  [chap. 

ing  a  horseman  for  the  purpose,  the  brothers  could  meet 
once  a  week.  Huntingdon  was  a  quiet  little  town  with 
less  than  two  thousand  inhabitants,  in  a  dull  country,  the 
best  part  of  which  was  the  Ouse,  especially  to  Cowper, 
who  was  fond  of  bathing.  Life  there,  as  in  other  English 
country  towns  in  those  days,  and,  indeed,  till  railroads  made 
people  everywhere  too  restless  and  migratory  for  compan- 
ionship, or  even  for  acquaintance,  was  sociable  in  an  unre- 
fined way.  There  were  assemblies,  dances,  races,  card-parties, 
and  a  bowling-green,  at  which  the  little  world  met  and  en- 
joyed itself.  From  these  the  new  convert,  in  his  spiritual 
ecstasy,  of  course  turned  away  as  mere  modes  of  murdering 
time.  Three  families  received  him  with  civility,  two  of 
them  with  cordiality ;  but  the  chief  acquaintances  he  made 
were  with  "  odd  scrambling  fellows  like  himself ;"  an  ec- 
centric water-drinker  and  vegetarian  who  was  to  be  met 
by  early  risers  and  walkers  every  morning  at  six  o'clock 
by  his  favourite  spring;  a  char-parson,  of  the  class  com- 
mon in  those  days  of  sinecurism  and  non-residence,  who 
walked  sixteen  miles  every  Sunday  to  serve  two  churches, 
besides  reading  daily  prayers  at  Huntingdon,  and  who  re- 
galed his  friend  with  ale  brewed  by  his  own  hands.  In 
his  attached  servant  the  recluse  boasted  that  he  had  a 
friend ;  a  friend  he  might  have,  but  hardly  a  companion. 

For  the  first  days,  and  even  weeks,  however,  Huntingdon 
seemed  a  paradise.  The  heart  of  its  new  inhabitant  was 
full  of  the  unspeakable  happiness  that  comes  with  calm 
after  storm,  with  health  after  the  most  terrible  of  mala- 
dies, with  repose  after  the  burning  fever  of  the  brain. 
When  first  he  went  to  church,  he  was  in  a  spiritual  ec- 
stasy; it  was  with  difficulty  that  he  restrained  his  emo- 
tions ;  though  his  voice  was  silent,  being  stopped  by  the 
intensity  of  his  feelings,  his  heart  within  him  sang  for  joy ; 


n.]  AT  HUNTINGDON— THE  UNWINS.  25 

and  when  the  Gospel  for  the  day  was  read,  the  sound  of  it 
was  more  than  he  could  well  bear.  This  brightness  of  his 
mind  communicated  itself  to  all  the  objects  round  him — 
to  the  sluggish  waters  of  the  Ouse,  to  dull,  fenny  Hunting- 
don, and  to  its  commonplace  inhabitants. 

For  about  three  months  his  cheerfulness  lasted,  and 
with  the  help  of  books,  and  his  rides  to  meet  his  brother, 
he  got  on  pretty  well ;  but  then  "  the  communion  which 
he  had  so  long  been  able  to  maintain  with  the  Lord  was 
suddenly  interrupted."  This  is  his  theological  version  of 
the  case ;  the  rationalistic  version  immediately  follows : 
"  I  began  to  dislike  my  solitary  situation,  and  to  fear  I 
should  never  be  able  to  weather  out  the  winter  in  so  lone- 
ly a  dwelling."  No  man  could  be  less  fitted  to  bear  a 
lonely  life;  persistence  in  the  attempt  would  soon  have 
brought  back  his  madness.  He  was  longing  for  a  home ; 
and  a  home  was  at  hand  to  receive  him.  It  was  not,  per- 
haps, one  of  the  happiest  kind ;  but  the  influence  which 
detracted  from  its  advantages  was  the  one  which  rendered 
it  hospitable  to  the  wanderer.  If  Christian  piety  was  car- 
ried to  a  morbid  excess  beneath  its  roof,  Christian  charity 
opened  its  door. 

The  religious  revival  was  now  in  full  career,  with  Wes- 
ley for  its  chief  apostle,  organizer,  and  dictator ;  Whitefield 
for  its  great  preacher ;  Fletcher  of  Madeley  for  its  typical 
saint ;  Lady  Huntingdon  for  its  patroness  among  the  aris- 
tocracy, and  the  chief  of  its  "  devout  women."  From  the 
pulpit,  but  still  more  from  the  stand  of  the  field-preacher 
and  through  a  well-trained  army  of  social  propagandists,  it 
waa  assailing  the  scepticism,  the  coldness,  the  frivolity,  the 
vices  of  the  age.  English  society  was  deeply  stirred ;  mul- 
titudes were  converted,  while  among  those  who  were  not 
converted  violent  and  sometimes  cruel  antagonism  was 


26  COWPER.  [chap. 

aroused.  The  party  had  two  wings — the  Evangelicals, 
people  of  the  wealthier  class  or  clergymen  of  the  Church 
of  England,  who  remained  within  the  Establishment ;  and 
the  Methodists,  people  of  the  lower  middle  class  or  peas- 
ants, the  personal  converts  and  followers  of  Wesley  and 
Whitefield,  who,  like  their  leaders,  without  a  positive  se- 
cession, soon  found  themselves  organizing  a  separate  spir- 
itual life  in  the  freedom  of  Dissent.  In  the  early  stages 
of  the  movement  the  Evangelicals  were  to  be  counted  at 
most  by  hundreds,  the  Methodists  by  hundreds  of  thou- 
sands. So  far  as  the  masses  were  concerned,  it  was,  in  fact, 
a  preaching  of  Christianity  anew.  There  was  a  cross  divi- 
sion of  the  party  into  the  Calvinists  and  those  whom  the 
Calvinists  called  Arminians ;  Wesley  belonging  to  the  lat- 
ter section,  while  the  most  pronounced  and  vehement  of 
the  Calvinists  was  "  the  fierce  Toplady."  As  a  rule,  the 
darker  and  sterner  element,  that  which  delighted  in  relig- 
ious terrors  and  threatenings  was  Calvinist,  the  milder  and 
gentler,  that  which  preached  a  gospel  of  love  and  hope 
continued  to  look  up  to  Wesley,  and  to  bear  with  him  the 
reproach  of  being  Arminian. 

It  is  needless  to  enter  into  a  minute  description  of 
Evangelicism  and  Methodism ;  they  are  not  things  of  the 
past.  If  Evangelicism  has  now  been  reduced  to  a  narrow 
domain  by  the  advancing  forces  of  Ritualism  on  one  side 
and  of  Rationalism  on  the  other,  Methodism  is  still  the 
great  Protestant  Church,  especially  beyond  the  Atlantic. 
The  spiritual  fire  which  they  have  kindled,  the  character 
which  they  have  produced,  the  moral  reforms  which  they 
have  wrought,  the  works  of  charity  and  philanthropy  to 
which  they  have  given  birth,  are  matters  not  only  of  re- 
cent memory,  but  of  present  experience.  Like  the  great 
Protestant  revivals  which  had  preceded  them  in  England, 


n.]  AT  HUNTINGDON— THE  UNWINS.  27 

like  the  Moravian  revival  on  the  Continent,  to  which  they 
were  closely  related,  they  sought  to  bring  the  soul  into 
direct  communion  with  its  Maker,  rejecting  the  interven- 
tion of  a  priesthood  or  a  sacramental  system.  Unlike  the 
previous  revivals  in  England,  they  warred  not  against  the 
rulers  of  the  Church  or  State,  but  only  against  vice  or  irre- 
ligion.  Consequently,  in  the  characters  which  they  pro- 
duced, as  compared  with  those  produced  by  Wycliffism, 
by  the  Reformation,  and  notably  by  Puritanism,  there 
was  less  of  force  and  the  grandeur  connected  with  it, 
more  of  gentleness,  mysticism,  and  religious  love.  Even 
Quietism,  or  something  like  it,  prevailed,  especially  among 
the  Evangelicals,  who  were  not  like  the  Methodists,  en- 
gaged in  framing  a  new  organization  or  in  wrestling  with 
the  barbarous  vices  of  the  lower  orders.  No  movement 
of  the  kind  has  ever  been  exempt  from  drawbacks  and 
follies,  from  extravagance,  exaggeration,  breaches  of  good 
taste  in  religious  matters,  unctuousness,  and  cant — from 
chimerical  attempts  to  get  rid  of  the  flesh  and  live  an 
angelic  life  on  earth — from  delusions  about  special  provi- 
dences and  miracles — from  a  tendency  to  overvalue  doc- 
trine and  undervalue  duty — from  arrogant  assumption  of 
spiritual  authority  by  leaders  and  preachers — from  the 
self-righteousness  which  fancies  itself  the  object  of  a  di- 
vine election,  and  looks  out  with  a  sort  of  religious  com- 
placency from  the  Ark  of  Salvation  in  which  it  fancies 
itself  securely  placed,  upon  the  drowning  of  an  unregener- 
ate  world.  Still,  it  will  hardly  be  doubted  that  in  the  ef- 
fects produced  by  Evangelicism  and  Methodism  the  good 
has  outweighed  the  evil.  Had  Jansenism  prospered  as 
well,  France  might  have  had  more  of  reform  and  less  of 
revolution.  The  poet  of  the  movement  will  not  be  con- 
demned on  account  of  his  connexion  with  it,  any  more 
C      2* 


28  COWPER.  [chap. 

than  Milton  is  condemned  on  account  of  his  connexion 
with  Puritanism,  provided  it  be  found  that  he  also  served 
art  well. 

Cowper,  as  we  have  seen,  was  already  converted.  In  a 
letter  written  at  this  time  to  Lady  Hesketh,  he  speaks  of 
himself  with  great  humility  "  as  a  convert  made  in  Bed- 
lam, who  is  more  likely  to  be  a  stumbling-block  to  others 
than  to  advance  their  faith,"  though  he  adds,  with  reason 
enough,  "  that  he  who  can  ascribe  an  amendment  of  life 
and  manners,  and  a  reformation  of  the  heart  itself,  to 
madness,  is  guilty  of  an  absurdity  that  in  any  other  case 
would  fasten  the  imputation  of  madness  upon  himself." 
It  is  hence  to  be  presumed  that  he  traced  his  conversion 
to  his  spiritual  intercourse  with  the  Evangelical  physician 
of  St.  Alban's,  though  the  seed  sown  by  Martin  Madan  may, 
perhaps,  also  have  sprung  up  in  his  heart  when  the  more 
propitious  season  arrived.  However  that  may  have  been, 
the  two  great  factors  of  Cowper's  life  were  the  malady 
which  consigned  him  to  poetic  seclusion  and  the  conver- 
sion to  Evangelicism,  which  gave  him  his  inspiration  and 
his  theme. 

At  Huntingdon  dwelt  the  Rev.  William  Unwin,  a  cler- 
gyman, taking  pupils,  his  wife,  much  younger  than  him- 
self, and  their  son  and  daughter.  It  was  a  typical  family 
of  the  Revival.  Old  Mr.  Unwin  is  described  by  Cowper 
as  a  Parson  Adams.  The  son,  William  Unwin,  was  pre- 
paring for  holy  orders.  He  was  a  man  of  some  mark,  and 
received  tokens  of  intellectual  respect  from  Paley,  though 
he  is  best  known  as  the  friend  to  whom  many  of  Cowper's 
letters  are  addressed.  He  it  was  who,  struck  by  the  ap- 
pearance of  the  stranger,  sought  an  opportunity  of  making 
his  acquaintance.  He  found  one,  after  morning  church, 
when  Cowper  was  taking  his  solitary  walk  beneath  the 


n.]  AT  HUNTINGDON— THE  UNWINS.  29 

trees.  Under  the  influence  of  religious  sympathy  the  ac- 
quaintance quickly  ripened  into  friendship;  Cowper  at 
once  became  one  of  the  TJnwin  circle,  and  soon  afterward, 
a  vacancy  being  made  by  the  departure  of  one  of  the  pu- 
pils, he  became  a  boarder  in  the  house.  This  position  he 
had  passionately  desired  on  religious  grounds ;  but,  in  truth, 
he  might  well  have  desired  it  on  economical  grounds  also, 
for  he  had  begun  to  experience  the  difficulty  and  expen- 
siveness,  as  well  as  the  loneliness,  of  bachelor  housekeep- 
ing, and  financial  deficit  was  evidently  before  him.  To 
Mrs.  TJnwin  he  was  from  the  first  strongly  drawn.  "  I 
met  Mrs.  TJnwin  in  the  street,"  he  says,  "  and  went  home 
with  her.  She  and  I  walked  together  near  two  hours  in 
the  garden,  and  had  a  conversation  which  did  me  more 
good  than  I  should  have  received  from  an  audience  with 
the  first  prince  in  Europe.  That  woman  is  a  blessing  to 
me,  and  I  never  see  her  without  being  the  better  for  her 
company."  Mrs.  TJnwin's  character  is  written  in  her  por- 
trait with  its  prim  but  pleasant  features ;  a  Puritan  and  a 
precisian  she  was ;  but  she  was  not  morose  or  sour,  and 
she  had  a  boundless  capacity  for  affection.  Lady  Hesketh, 
a  woman  of  the  world,  and  a  good  judge  in  every  respect, 
says  of  her  at  a  later  period,  when  she  had  passed  with 
Cowper  through  many  sad  and  trying  years :  "  She  is  very 
far  from  grave ;  on  the  contrary,  she  is  cheerful  and  gay, 
and  laughs  de  bon  cceur  upon  the  smallest  provocation. 
Amidst  all  the  little  puritanical  words  which  fall  from  her 
de  temps  en  temps,  she  seems  to  have  by  nature  a  quiet 
fund  of  gaiety ;  great  indeed  must  it  have  been,  not  to 
have  been  wholly  overcome  by  the  close  confinement  in 
which  she  has  lived,  and  the  anxiety  she  must  have  under- 
gone for  one  whom  she  certainly  loves  as  well  as  one  hu- 
man being  can  love  another.     I  will  not  say  she  idolizes 


80  COWPER.  [chap. 

him,  because  that  she  would  think  wrong ;  but  she  cer- 
tainly seems  to  possess  the  truest  regard  and  affection  for 
this  excellent  creature,  and,  as  I  said  before,  has  in  the 
most  literal  sense  of  those  words,  no  will  or  shadow  of 
inclination  but  what  is  his.  My  account  of  Mrs.  Unwin 
may  seem,  perhaps,  to  you,  on  comparing  my  letters,  con- 
tradictory; but  when  you  consider  that  I  began  to  write 
at  the  first  moment  that  I  saw  her,  you  will  not  wonder. 
Her  character  develops  itself  by  degrees;  and  though  I 
might  lead  you  to  suppose  her  grave  and  melancholy,  she 
is  not  so  by  any  means.  When  she  speaks  upon  grave 
subjects,  she  does  express  herself  with  a  puritanical  tone, 
and  in  puritanical  expressions,  but  on  all  subjects  she 
seems  to  have  a  great  disposition  to  cheerfulness  and 
mirth ;  and,  indeed,  had  she  not,  she  could  not  have  gone 
through  all  she  has.  I  must  say,  too,  that  she  seems  to  be 
very  well  read  in  the  English  poets,  as  appears  by  several 
little  quotations,  which  she  makes  from  time  to  time,  and 
has  a  true  taste  for  what  is  excellent  in  that  way." 

When  Cowper  became  an  author  he  paid  the  highest 
respect  to  Mrs.  Unwin  as  an  instinctive  critic,  and  called 
her  his  Lord  Chamberlain,  whose  approbation  was  his  suf- 
ficient licence  for  publication. 

Life  in  the  Unwin  family  is  thus  described  by  the  new 
inmate: — "As  to  amusements — I  mean  what  the  world 
calls  such — we  have  none.  The  place,  indeed,  swarms  with 
them ;  and  cards  and  dancing  are  the  professed  business 
of  almost  all  the  gentle  inhabitants  of  Huntingdon.  We 
refuse  to  take  part  in  them,  or  to  be  accessories  to  this 
way  of  murdering  our  time,  and  by  so  doing  have  acquired 
the  name  of  Methodists.  Having  told  you  how  we  do  not 
spend  our  time,  I  will  next  say  how  we  do.  We  breakfast 
commonly  between  eight  and  nine ;   till  eleven,  we  read 


n.]  AT  HUNTINGDON— THE  UNWINS.  31 

either  the  Scripture,  or  the  sermons  of  some  faithful 
preacher  of  those  holy  mysteries;  at  eleven  we  attend 
divine  service,  which  is  performed  here  twice  every  day; 
and  from  twelve  to  three  we  separate,  and  amuse  our- 
selves as  we  please.  During  that  interval,  I  either  read  in 
my  own  apartment,  or  walk,  or  ride,  or  work  in  the  garden. 
We  seldom  sit  an  hour  after  dinner,  but,  if  the  weather 
permits,  adjourn  to  the  garden,  where,  with  Mrs.  Unwin 
and  her  son,  I  have  generally  the  pleasure  of  religious  con- 
versation till  tea-time.  If  it  rains,  or  is  too  windy  for 
walking,  we  either  converse  within  doors  or  sing  some 
hymns  of  Martin's  collection,  and  by  the  help  of  Mrs.  Un- 
win's  harpsichord  make  up  a  tolerable  concert,  in  which 
our  hearts,  I  hope,  are  the  best  performers.  After  tea  we 
sally  forth  to  walk  in  good  earnest.  Mrs.  Unwin  is  a  good 
walker,  and  we  have  generally  travelled  about  four  miles 
before  we  see  home  again.  "When  the  days  are  short  we 
make  this  excursion  in  the  former  part  of  the  day,  between 
church-time  and  dinner.  At  night  we  read  and  converse 
as  before  till  supper,  and  commonly  finish  the  evening 
either  with  hymns  or  a  sermon,  and  last  of  all  the  family 
are  called  to  prayers.  I  need  not  tell  you  that  such  a  life 
as  this  is  consistent  with  the  utmost  cheerfulness ;  accord- 
ingly, we  are  all  happy,  and  dwell  together  in  unity  as 
brethren." 

Mrs.  Cowper,  the  wife  of  Major  (now  Colonel)  Cowper, 
to  whom  this  was  written,  was  herself  strongly  Evangeli- 
cal ;  Cowper  had,  in  fact,  unfortunately  for  him,  turned 
from  his  other  relations  and  friends  to  her  on  that  account. 
She,  therefore,  would  have  no  difficulty  in  thinking  that 
such  a  life  was  consistent  with  cheerfulness,  but  ordinary 
readers  will  ask  how  it  could  fail  to  bring  on  another  fit 
of  hypochondria.    The  answer  is  probably  to  be  found  in 


82  COWPER.  [chap. 

the  last  words  of  the  passage.  Overstrained  and  ascetic 
piety  found  an  antidote  in  affection.  The  Unwins  were 
Puritans  and  enthusiasts,  but  their  household  was  a  picture 
of  domestic  love. 

With  the  name  of  Mrs.  Cowper  is  connected  an  incident 
which  occurred  at  this  time,  and  which  illustrates  the  pro- 
pensity to  self -inspection  and  self-revelation  which  Cowper 
had  in  common  with  Rousseau.  Huntingdon,  like  other 
little  towns,  was  all  eyes  and  gossip ;  the  new-comer  was  a 
mysterious  stranger  who  kept  himself  aloof  from  the  gen- 
eral society,  and  he  naturally  became  the  mark  for  a  little 
stone-throwing.  Young  Unwin  happening  to  be  passing 
near  "  the  Park  "  on  his  way  from  London  to  Huntingdon, 
Cowper  gave  him  an  introduction  to  its  lady,  in  a  letter 
to  whom  he  afterwards  disclosed  his  secret  motive.  "  My 
dear  Cousin, — You  sent  my  friend  Unwin  home  to  us 
charmed  with  your  kind  reception  of  him,  and  with  every- 
thing he  saw  at  the  Park.  Shall  I  once  more  give  you  a 
peep  into  my  vile  and  deceitful  heart?  What  motive  do 
you  think  lay  at  the  bottom  of  my  conduct  when  I  de- 
sired him  to  call  upon  you?  I  did  not  suspect,  at  first, 
that  pride  and  vainglory  had  any  share  in  it ;  but  quickly 
after  I  had  recommended  the  visit  to  him,  I  discovered,  in 
that  fruitful  soil,  the  very  root  of  the  matter.  You  know 
I  am  a  stranger  here;  all  such  are  suspected  characters, 
unless  they  bring  their  credentials  with  them.  To  this 
moment,  I  believe,  it  is  a  matter  of  speculation  in  the 
place,  whence  I  came,  and  to  whom  I  belong.  Though 
my  friend,  you  may  suppose,  before  I  was  admitted  an  in- 
mate here,  was  satisfied  that  I  was  not  a  mere  vagabond, 
and  has,  since  that  time,  received  more  convincing  proofs 
of  my  sponsibility ;  yet  I  could  not  resist  the  opportunity 
of  furnishing  him  with  ocular  demonstration  of  it,  by  in- 


H.]  AT  HUNTINGDON— THE  UNWINS.  33 

troducing  him  to  one  of  my  most  splendid  connexions; 
that  when  he  hears  me  called  '  that  fellow  Cowper,'  which 
has  happened  heretofore,  he  may  be  able,  upon  unquestion- 
able evidence,  to  assert  my  gentleinanhood,  and  relieve  me 
from  the  weight  of  that  opprobrious  appellation.  Oh, 
pride !  pride !  it  deceives  with  the  subtlety  of  a  serpent, 
and  seems  to  walk  erect,  though  it  crawls  upon  the  earth. 
How  will  it  twist  and  twine  itself  about  to  get  from  under 
the  Cross,  which  it  is  the  glory  of  our  Christian  calling  to 
be  able  to  bear  with  patience  and  good-will.  They  who 
can  guess  at  the  heart  of  a  stranger, — and  you  especially, 
who  are  of  a  compassionate  temper, — will  be  more  ready, 
perhaps,  to  excuse  me,  in  this  instance,  than  I  can  be  to 
excuse  myself.  But,  in  good  truth,  it  was  abominable 
pride  of  heart,  indignation,  and  vanity,  and  deserves  no 
better  name." 

Once  more,  however  obsolete  Cowper's  belief,  and  the 
language  in  which  he  expresses  it  may  have  become  for 
many  of  us,  we  must  take  it  as  his  philosophy  of  life.  At 
this  time,  at  all  events,  it  was  a  source  of  happiness.  "  The 
storm  being  passed,  a  quiet  and  peaceful  serenity  of  soul 
succeeded ;"  and  the  serenity  in  this  case  was  unquestion- 
ably produced  in  part  by  the  faith. 

H I  was  a  stricken  deer  that  left  the  herd 
Long  since ;  with  many  an  arrow  deep  infixed 
My  panting  side  was  charged,  when  I  withdrew 
To  seek  a  tranquil  death  in  distant  shades. 
There  was  I  found  by  one  who  had  himself 
Been  hurt  by  the  archers.     In  his  side  he  bore, 
And  in  his  hands  and  feet,  the  cruel  scars, 
With  gentle  force  soliciting  the  darts, 
He  drew  them  forth  and  healed  and  bade  me  live." 


84  COWPER.  [chap,  n 

Cowper  thought  for  a  moment  of  taking  orders,  but  his 
dread  of  appearing  in  public  conspired  with  the  good 
sense  which  lay  beneath  his  excessive  sensibility  to  put  a 
veto  on  the  design.  He,  however,  exercised  the  zeal  of  a 
neophyte  in  proselytism  to  a  greater  extent  than  his  own 
judgment  and  good  taste  approved  when  his  enthusiasm 
had  calmed  down. 


CHAPTER  m. 

AT    OLNEY — MR.  NEWTON. 

Cowper  had  not  been  two  years  with  the  Unwins  when 
Mr.  Unwin,  the  father,  was  killed  by  a  fall  from  his  horse ; 
this  broke  up  the  household.  But  between  Cowper  and 
Mrs.  Unwin  an  indissoluble  tie  had  been  formed.  It  seems 
clear,  notwithstanding  Southey's  assertion  to  the  contra- 
ry that  they  at  one  time  meditated  marriage,  possibly  as  a 
propitiation  to  the  evil  tongues  which  did  not  spare  even 
this  most  innocent  connexion ;  but  they  were  prevented 
from  fulfilling  their  intention  by  a  return  of  Cowper's  mal- 
ady. They  became  companions  for  life.  Cowper  says 
they  were  as  mother  and  son  to  each  other ;  but  Mrs.  Un- 
win was  only  seven  years  older  than  he.  To  label  their 
connexion  is  impossible,  and  to  try  to  do  it  would  be  a 
platitude.  In  his  poems  Cowper  calls  Mrs.  Unwin  Mary  ; 
she  seems  always  to  have  called  him  Mr.  Cowper.  It  is 
evident  that  her  son,  a  strictly  virtuous  and  religious  man, 
never  had  the  slightest  misgiving  about  his  mother's  po- 
sition. 

The  pair  had  to  choose  a  dwelling-place;  they  chose 
Olney,  in  Buckinghamshire,  on  the  Ouse.  The  Ouse  was 
"  a  slow  winding  river,"  watering  low  meadows,  from 
which  crept  pestilential  fogs.     Olney  was  a  dull  town,  or 

rather  village,  inhabited  by  a  population  of  lace -makers, 

Is 


86  COWPER.  [chaf. 

ill-paid,  fever-stricken,  and  for  the  most  part  as  brutal  as 
they  were  poor.  There  was  not  a  woman  in  the  place,  ex- 
cepting Mrs.  Newton,  with  whom  Mrs.  Unwin  could  asso- 
ciate, or  to  whom  she  could  look  for  help  in  sickness  or 
other  need.  The  house  in  which  the  pair  took  up  their 
abode  was  dismal,  prison-like,  and  tumble-down  ;  when  they 
left  it,  the  competitors  for  the  succession  were  a  cobbler 
and  a  publican.  It  looked  upon  the  Market-place,  but  it 
was  in  the  close  neighbourhood  of  Silver  End,  the  worst 
part  of  Olney.  In  winter  the  cellars  were  full  of  water. 
There  were  no  pleasant  walks  within  easy  reach,  and  in 
winter  Cowper's  only  exercise  was  pacing  thirty  yards  of 
gravel,  with  the  dreary  supplement  of  dumb-bells.  What 
was  the  attraction  to  this  "  well,"  this  "  abyss,"  as  Cowper 
himself  called  it,  and  as,  physically  and  socially,  it  was  ? 

The  attraction  was  the  presence  of  the  Rev.  John  New- 
ton, then  curate  of  Olney.  The  vicar  was  Moses  Brown,  an 
Evangelical  and  a  religious  writer,  who  has  even  deserved 
a  place  among  the  worthies  of  the  revival ;  but  a  family 
of  thirteen  children,  some  of  whom  it  appears  too  closely 
resembled  the  sons  of  Eli,  had  compelled  him  to  take  ad- 
vantage of  the  indulgent  character  of  the  ecclesiastical  pol- 
ity of  those  days  by  becoming  a  pluralist  and  a  non-resi- 
dent, so  that  the  curate  had  Olney  to  himself.  The  patron 
was  the  Lord  Dartmouth,  who,  as  Cowper  says,  "  wore  a 
coronet  and  prayed."  John  Newton  was  one  of  the  shin- 
ing lights  and  foremost  leaders  and  preachers  of  the  re- 
vival. His  name  was  great  both  in  the  Evangelical  church- 
es within  the  pale  of  the  Establishment,  and  in  the  Meth- 
odist churches  without  it.  He  was  a  brand  plucked  from 
the  very  heart  of  the  burning.  We  have  a  memoir  of  his 
life,  partly  written  by  himself,  in  the  form  of  letters,  and 
completed  under  his  superintendence.     It  is  a  monument 


iii.]  AT  OLNEY— MR.  NEWTON.  SI 

of  the  age  of  Smollett  and  Wesley,  not  less  characteristic 
than  is  Cellini's  memoir  of  the  times  in  which  he  lived. 
His  father  was  master  of  a  vessel,  and  took  him  to  sea 
when  he  was  eleven.  His  mother  was  a  pious  Dissenter, 
who  was  at  great  pains  to  store  his  mind  with  religious 
thoughts  and  pieces.  She  died  when  he  was  young,  and 
his  step-mother  was  not  pious.  He  began  to  drag  his  re- 
ligious anchor,  and  at  length,  having  read  Shaftesbury,  left 
his  theological  moorings  altogether,  and  drifted  into  a  wide 
sea  of  ungodliness,  blasphemy,  and  recklessness  of  living. 
Such  at  least  is  the  picture  drawn  by  the  sinner  saved  of 
his  own  earlier  years.  While  still  but  a  strippling  he  fell 
desperately  in  love  with  a  girl  of  thirteen ;  his  affection 
for  her  was  as  constant  as  it  was  romantic ;  through  all 
his  wanderings  and  sufferings  he  never  ceased  to  think  of 
her,  and  after  seven  years  she  became  his  wife.  His  father 
frowned  on  the  engagement,  and  he  became  estranged  from 
home.  He  was  impressed  ;  narrowly  escaped  shipwreck, 
deserted,  and  was  arrested  and  flogged  as  a  deserter.  Re- 
leased from  the  navy,  he  was  taken  into  the  service  of  a 
slave-dealer  on  the  coast  of  Africa,  at  whose  hands,  and 
those  of  the  man's  negro  mistress,  he  endured  every  sort  of 
ill-treatment  and  contumely,  being  so  starved  that  he  was 
fain  sometimes  to  devour  raw  roots  to  stay  his  hunger. 
His  constitution  must  have  been  of  iron  to  carry  him 
through  all  that  he  endured.  In  the  meantime  his  indom- 
itable mind  was  engaged  in  attempts  at  self-culture ;  he 
studied  a  Euclid  which  he  had  brought  with  him,  drawing 
his  diagrams  on  the  sand ;  and  he  afterwards  managed  to 
teach  himself  Latin  by  means  of  a  Horace  and  a  Latin  Bi- 
ble, aided  by  some  slight  vestiges  of  the  education  which 
he  had  received  at  a  grammar-school.  His  conversion  was 
brought  about  by  the  continued  influences  of  Thomas  a 


88  COWPER.  [chap. 

Kempis,  of  a  very  narrow  escape,  after  terrible  sufferings, 
from  shipwreck,  of  the  impression  made  by  the  sights  of 
the  mighty  deep  on  a  soul  which,  in  tcs  weather-beaten 
casing,  had  retained  its  native  sensibility,  and,  we  may  safe- 
ly add,  of  the  disregarded  but  not  forgotten  teachings  of 
his  pious  mother.  Providence  was  now  kind  to  him ;  he 
became  captain  of  a  slave-ship,  and  made  several  voyages 
on  the  business  of  the  trade.  That  it  was  a  wicked  trade 
he  seems  to  have  had  no  idea ;  he  says  he  never  knew 
sweeter  or  more  frequent  hours  of  divine  communion  than 
on  his  two  last  voyages  to  Guinea.  Afterwards  it  occurred 
to  him  that  though  his  employment  was  genteel  and  profit- 
able, it  made  him  a  sort  of  gaoler,  unpleasantly  conversant 
with  both  chains  and  shackles ;  and  he  besought  Provi- 
dence to  fix  him  in  a  more  humane  calling. 

In  answer  to  his  prayer  came  a  fit  of  apoplexy,  which 
made  it  dangerous  for  him  to  go  to  sea  again.  He  ob- 
tained an  office  in  the  port  of  Liverpool,  but  soon  he  set 
his  heart  on  becoming  a  minister  of  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land. He  applied  for  ordination  to  the  Archbishop  of 
York,  but  not  having  the  degree  required  by  the  rules  of 
the  Establishment,  he  received  through  his  Grace's  secre- 
tary "the  softest  refusal  imaginable."  The  Archbishop 
had  not  had  the  advantage  of  perusing  Lord  Macaulay's 
remarks  on  the  difference  between  the  policy  of  the  Church 
of  England  and  that  of  the  Church  of  Rome,  with  regard 
to  the  utilization  of  religious  enthusiasts.  In  the  end 
Newton  was  ordained  by  the  Bishop  of  Lincoln,  and  threw 
himself  with  the  energy  of  a  new-born  apostle  upon  the 
irreligion  and  brutality  of  Olney.  No  Carthusian's  breast 
could  glow  more  intensely  with  the  zeal  which  is  the  off- 
spring of  remorse.  Newton  was  a  Calvinist,  of  course, 
though  it  seems  not  an  extreme  one ;  otherwise  he  would 


in.]  AT  OLNEY— MR.  NEWTON.  89 

probably  have  confirmed  Cowper  in  the  darkest  of  hallu- 
cinations. His  religion  was  one  of  mystery  and  miracle, 
full  of  sudden  conversions,  special  providences,  and  satanic 
visitations.  He  himself  says  that  "  his  name  was  up  about 
the  country  for  preaching  people  mad;"  it  is  true  that 
in  the  eyes  of  the  profane  Methodism  itself  was  madness ; 
but  he  goes  on  to  say  "  whether  it  is  owing  to  the  seden- 
tary life  the  women  live  here,  poring  over  their  (lace) 
pillows  for  ten  or  twelve  hours  every  day,  and  breathing 
confined  air  in  their  crowded  little  rooms,  or  whatever  may 
be  the  immediate  cause,  I  suppose  we  have  near  a  dozen 
in  different  degrees  disordered  in  their  heads,  and  most  of 
them  I  believe  truly  gracious  people."  He  surmises  that 
"  these  things  are  permitted  in  judgment,  that  they  who 
seek  occasion  for  cavilling  and  stumbling  may  have  what 
they  want."  Nevertheless  there  were  in  him  not  only 
force,  courage,  burning  zeal  for  doing  good,  but  great 
kindness,  and  even  tenderness  of  heart.  "I  see  in  this 
world,"  he  said,  "  two  heaps  of  human  happiness  and  mis- 
ery ;  now,  if  I  can  take  but  the  smallest  bit  from  one  heap 
and  add  it  to  the  other,  I  carry  a  point — if,  as  I  go  home, 
a  child  has  dropped  a  half-penny,  and  by  giving  it  another 
I  can  wipe  away  its  tears,  I  feel  I  have  done  something." 
There  was  even  in  him  a  strain,  if  not  of  humour,  of  a 
shrewdness  which  was  akin  to  it,  and  expressed  itself  in 
many  pithy  sayings.  "If  two  angels  came  down  from 
heaven  to  execute  a  divine  command,  and  one  was  ap- 
pointed to  conduct  an  empire  and  the  other  to  sweep  a 
street  in  it,  they  would  feel  no  inclination  to  change  em- 
ployments." "  A  Christian  should  never  plead  spirituality 
for  being  a  sloven ;  if  he  be  but  a  shoe-cleaner,  he  should 
be  the  best  in  the  parish."  "  My  principal  method  for  de- 
feating heresy  is  by  establishing  truth.    One  proposes  to 


40  COWPER.  [chap. 

fill  a  bushel  with  tares ;  now  if  I  can  fill  it  first  with  wheat, 
I  shall  defy  his  attempts."  That  his  Calvinism  was  not 
very  dark  or  sulphureous,  seems  to  be  shown  from  his  re- 
peating with  gusto  the  saying  of  one  of  the  old  women  of 
Olney  when  some  preacher  dwelt  on  the  doctrine  of  pre- 
destination— "  Ah,  I  have  long  settled  that  point ;  for  if 
God  had  not  chosen  me  before  I  was  born,  I  am  sure  he 
would  have  seen  nothing  to  have  chosen  me  for  after- 
wards." That  he  had  too  much  sense  to  take  mere  pro- 
fession for  religion  appears  from  his  describing  the  Cal- 
vinists  of  Olney  as  of  two  sorts,  which  reminded  him  of 
the  two  baskets  of  Jeremiah's  figs.  The  iron  constitution 
which  had  carried  him  through  so  many  hardships  ena- 
bled him  to  continue  in  his  ministry  to  extreme  old  age. 
A  friend  at  length  counselled  him  to  stop  before  he  found 
himself  stopped  by  being  able  to  speak  no  longer.  "I 
cannot  stop,"  he  said,  raising  his  voice.  "What!  shall 
the  old  African  blasphemer  stop  while  he  can  speak  ?" 

At  the  instance  of  a  common  friend,  Newton  had  paid 
Mrs.  Unwin  a  visit  at  Huntingdon,  after  her  husband's 
death,  and  had  at  once  established  the  ascendency  of  a 
powerful  character  over  her  and  Cowper.  He  now  beck- 
oned the  pair  to  his  side,  placed  them  in  the  house  adjoin- 
ing his  own,  and  opened  a  private  door  between  the  two 
gardens,  so  as  to  have  his  spiritual  children  always  beneath 
his  eye.  Under  this,  in  the  most  essential  respect,  unhap- 
py influence,  Cowper  and  Mrs.  Unwin  together  entered  on 
"  a  decided  course  of  Christian  happiness ;"  that  is  to  say, 
they  spent  all  their  days  in  a  round  of  religious  exercises 
without  relaxation  or  relief.  On  fine  summer  evenings,  as 
the  sensible  Lady  Hesketh  saw  with  dismay,  instead  of  a 
walk,  there  was  a  prayer -meeting.  Cowper  himself  was 
made  to  do  violence  to  his  intense  shyness  by  leading  in 


in.]  AT  OLNEY— MR.  NEWTON.  41 

prayer.  He  was  also  made  to  visit  the  poor  at  once  on 
spiritual  missions,  and  on  that  of  almsgiving,  for  which 
Thornton,  the  religious  philanthropist,  supplied  Newton 
and  his  disciples  with  means.  This,  which  Southey  appears 
to  think  about  the  worst  part  of  Newton's  regimen,  was 
probably  its  redeeming  feature.  The  effect  of  doing  good 
to  others  on  any  mind  was  sure  to  be  good ;  and  the  sight 
of  real  suffering  was  likely  to  banish  fancied  ills.  Cowper 
in  this  way  gained,  at  all  events,  a  practical  knowledge  of 
the  poor,  and  learned  to  do  them  justice,  though  from  a 
rather  too  theological  point  of  view.  Seclusion  from  the 
sinful  world  was  as  much  a  part  of  the  system  of  Mr. 
Newton  as  it  was  of  the  system  of  Saint  Benedict.  Cow- 
per was  almost  entirely  cut  off  from  intercourse  with  his 
friends  and  people  of  his  own  class.  He  dropped  his  cor- 
respondence even  with  his  beloved  cousin,  Lady  Hesketh, 
and  would  probably  have  dropped  his  correspondence  with 
Hill,  had  not  Hill's  assistance  in  money  matters  been  in- 
dispensable. To  complete  his  mental  isolation,  it  appears 
that,  having  sold  his  library,  he  had  scarcely  any  books. 
Such  a  course  of  Christian  happiness  as  this  could  only 
end  in  one  way ;  and  Newton  himself  seems  to  have  had 
the  sense  to  see  that  a  storm  was  brewing,  and  that  there 
was  no  way  of  conjuring  it  but  by  contriving  some  more 
congenial  occupation.  So  the  disciple  was  commanded  to 
employ  his  poetical  gifts  in  contributing  to  a  hymn-book 
which  Newton  was  compiling.  Cowper's  Olney  hymns 
have  not  any  serious  value  as  poetry.  Hymns  rarely  have. 
The  relations  of  man  with  Deity  transcend  and  repel  po- 
etical treatment.  There  is  nothing  in  them  on  which  the 
creative  imagination  can  be  exercised.  Hymns  can  be  lit- 
tle more  than  incense  of  the  worshipping  soul.  Those  of 
the  Latin  Church  are  the  best ;  not  because  they  are  better 


42  COWPER.  [chap. 

poetry  than  the  rest  (for  they  are  not),  hat  because  their 
language  is  the  most  sonorous.  Cowper's  hymns  were  ac- 
cepted by  the  religious  body  for  which  they  were  written, 
as  expressions  of  its  spiritual  feeling  and  desires ;  so  far 
they  were  successful.  They  are  the  work  of  a  religious 
man  of  culture,  and  free  from  anything  wild,  erotic,  or 
unctuous.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  there  is  nothing  in 
them  suited  to  be  the  vehicle  of  lofty  devotion ;  nothing, 
that  we  can  conceive  a  multitude,  or  even  a  prayer-meeting, 
uplifting  to  heaven  with  voice  and  heart.  Southey  has 
pointed  to  some  passages  on  which  the  shadow  of  the  ad- 
vancing malady  falls ;  but  in  the  main  there  is  a  predom- 
inance of  religious  joy  and  hope.  The  most  despondent 
hymn  of  the  series  is  Temptation,  the  thought  of  which 
resembles  that  of  The  Castaway. 

Cowper's  melancholy  may  have  been  aggravated  by  the 
loss  of  his  only  brother,  who  died  about  this  time,  and  at 
whose  death-bed  he  was  present ;  though  in  the  narrative 
which  he  wrote,  joy  at  John's  conversion  and  the  religious 
happiness  of  his  end  seems  to  exclude  the  feelings  by 
which  hypochondria  was  likely  to  be  fed.  But  his  mode 
of  life  under  Newton  was  enough  to  account  for  the  re- 
turn of  his  disease,  which  in  this  sense  may  be  fairly  laid 
to  the  charge  of  religion.  He  again  went  mad,  fancied,  as 
before,  that  he  was  rejected  of  Heaven,  ceased  to  pray 
as  one  helplessly  doomed,  and  again  attempted  suicide. 
Newton  and  Mrs.  Unwin  at  first  treated  the  disease  as  a 
diabolical  visitation,  and  "with  deplorable  consistency," 
to  borrow  the  phrase  used  by  one  of  their  friends  in  the 
case  of  Cowper's  desperate  abstinence  from  prayer,  ab- 
stained from  calling  in  a  physician.  Of  this,  again,  their 
religion  must  bear  the  reproach.  In  other  respects  they 
behaved  admirably.      Mrs.  Unwin,  shut  up  for   sixteen 


in.]  AT  OLNEY— MR.  NEWTON.  48 

months  with  her  unhappy  partner,  tended  him  with  un- 
failing love;  alone  she  did  it,  for  he  could  bear  no  one 
else  about  him ;  though,  to  make  her  part  more  trying,  he 
had  conceived  the  insane  idea  that  she  hated  him.  Sel- 
dom has  a  stronger  proof  been  given  of  the  sustaining 
power  of  affection.  Assuredly,  of  whatever  Cowper  may 
have  afterwards  done  for  his  kind,  a  great  part  must  be 
set  down  to  the  credit  of  Mrs.  Unwin. 

**  Mary !  I  want  a  lyre  with  other  strings, 

Such  aid  from  heaven  as  some  have  feigned  they  drew, 

An  eloquence  scarce  given  to  mortals,  new 
And  undehased  by  praise  of  meaner  things, 
That,  ere  through  age  or  woe  I  shed  my  wings, 

I  may  record  thy  worth  with  honour  due, 

In  verse  as  musical  as  thou  art  true, 
And  that  immortalizes  whom  it  sings. 
But  thou  hast  little  need.     There  is  a  book 

By  seraphs  writ  with  beams  of  heavenly  light, 
On  which  the  eyes  of  God  not  rarely  look, 

A  chronicle  of  actions  just  and  bright ; 
There  all  thy  deeds,  my  faithful  Mary,  shine, 
And,  since  thou  own'st  that  praise,  I  spare  thee  mine." 

Newton's  friendship,  too,  was  sorely  tried.  In  the  midst 
of  the  malady  the  lunatic  took  it  into  his  head  to  transfer 
himself  from  his  own  house  to  the  Vicarage,  which  he  ob- 
stinately refused  to  leave ;  and  Newton  bore  this  infliction 
for  several  months  without  repining,  though  he  might  well 
pray  earnestly  for  his  friend's  deliverance.  "The  Lord 
has  numbered  the  days  in  which  I  am  appointed  to  wait 
on  him  in  this  dark  valley,  and  he  has  given  us  such  a 
love  to  him,  both  as  a  believer  and  a  friend,  that  I  am  not 
weary :  but  to  be  sure  his  deliverance  would  be  to  me  one 
D      8 


44  COWPER.  [chap. 

of  the  greatest  blessings  my  thoughts  can  conceive."  Dr. 
Cotton  was  at  last  called  in,  and  under  his  treatment,  evi- 
dently directed  against  a  bodily  disease,  Cowper  was  at 
length  restored  to  sanity. 

Newton  once  compared  his  own  walk  in  the  world  to 
that  of  a  physician  going  through  Bedlam.  But  he  was 
not  skilful  in  his  treatment  of  the  literally  insane.  He 
thought  to  cajole  Cowper  out  of  his  cherished  horrors  by 
calling  his  attention  to  a  case  resembling  his  own.  The 
case  was  that  of  Simon  Browne,  a  Dissenter,  who  had  con- 
ceived the  idea  that,  being  under  the  displeasure  of  Heav- 
en, he  had  been  entirely  deprived  of  his  rational  being  and 
left  with  merely  his  animal  nature.  He  had  accordingly 
resigned  his  ministry,  and  employed  himself  in  compiling 
a  dictionary,  which,  he  said,  was  doing  nothing  that  could 
require  a  reasonable  soul.  He  seems  to  have  thought 
that  theology  fell  under  the  same  category,  for  he  pro- 
ceeded to  write  some  theological  treatises,  which  he  dedi- 
cated to  Queen  Caroline,  calling  her  Majesty's  attention  to 
the  singularity  of  the  authorship  as  the  most  remarkable 
phenomenon  of  her  reign.  Cowper,  however,  instead  of 
falling  into  the  desired  train  of  reasoning,  and  being  led 
to  suspect  the  existence  of  a  similar  illusion  in  himself, 
merely  rejected  the  claim  of  the  pretended  rival  in  spir- 
itual affliction,  declaring  his  own  case  to  be  far  the  more 
deplorable  of  the  two. 

Before  the  decided  course  of  Christian  happiness  had 
time  again  to  culminate  in  madness,  fortunately  for  Cow- 
per, Newton  left  Olney  for  St.  Mary  Woolnoth.  He  was 
driven  away  at  last  by  a  quarrel  with  his  barbarous  parish- 
ioners, the  cause  of  which  did  him  credit.  A  fire  broke 
out  at  Olney,  and  burnt  a  good  many  of  its  straw-thatched 
cottages.     Newton  ascribed  the  extinction  of  the  fire  rath- 


m.]  AT  OLNEY— MR.  NEWTON.  45 

er  to  prayer  than  water,  but  he  took  the  lead  in  practical 
measures  of  relief,  and  tried  to  remove  the  earthly  cause 
of  such  visitations  by  putting  an  end  to  bonfires  and  illu- 
minations on  the  5th  of  November.  Threatened  with  the 
loss  of  their  Gay  Fawkes,  the  barbarians  rose  upon  him, 
and  he  had  a  narrow  escape  from  their  violence.  We  are 
reminded  of  the  case  of  Cotton  Mather,  who,  after  being  a 
leader  in  witch-burning,  nearly  sacrificed  his  life  in  com- 
batting the  fanaticism  which  opposed  itself  to  the  intro- 
duction of  inoculation.  Let  it  always  be  remembered  that 
besides  its  theological  side,  the  Revival  had  its  philan- 
thropic and  moral  side;  that  it  abolished  the  slave-trade, 
and  at  last  slavery ;  that  it  waged  war,  and  effective  war, 
under  the  standard  of  the  gospel,  upon  masses  of  vice  and 
brutality,  which  had  been  totally  neglected  by  the  torpor 
of  the  Establishment ;  that  among  large  classes  of  the  peo- 
ple it  was  the  great  civilizing  agency  of  the  time. 

Newton  was  succeeded  as  curate  of  Olney  by  his  dis- 
ciple, and  a  man  of  somewhat  the  same  cast  of  mind  and 
character,  Thomas  Scott,  the  writer  of  the  Commentary 
on  the  Bible  and  The  Force  of  Truth.  To  Scott  Cowper 
seems  not  to  have  greatly  taken.  He  complains  that,  as  a 
preacher,  he  is  always  scolding  the  congregation.  Perhaps 
Newton  had  foreseen  that  it  would  be  so,  for  he  specially 
commended  the  spiritual  son  whom  he  was  leaving  to  the 
care  of  the  Rev.  William  Bull,  of  the  neighbouring  town  of 
Newport  Pagnell,  a  dissenting  minister,  but  a  member  of  a 
spiritual  connexion  which  did  not  stop  at  the  line  of  de- 
marcation between  Nonconformity  and  the  Establishment. 
To  Bull  Cowper  did  greatly  take;  he  extols  him  as  "a 
Dissenter,  but  a  liberal  one,"  a  man  of  letters  and  of  gen- 
ius, master  of  a  fine  imagination — or,  rather,  not  master  of 
it — and  addresses  him  as  Carissime  Taurorum.     It  is  rath- 


46  COWPER.  [chap.  iii. 

er  singular  that  Newton  should  have  given  himself  such  a 
successor.  Bull  was  a  great  smoker,  and  had  made  him- 
self a  cozy  and  secluded  nook  in  his  garden  for  the  enjoy- 
ment of  his  pipe.  He  was  probably  something  of  a  spir- 
itual as  well  as  of  a  physical  Quietist,  for  he  set  Cowper  to 
translate  the  poetry  of  the  great  exponent  of  Quietism, 
Madame  Guyon.  The  theme  of  all  the  pieces  which  Cow- 
per has  translated  is  the  same — Divine  Love  and  the  rapt- 
ures of  the  heart  that  enjoys  it — the  blissful  union  of  the 
drop  with  the  Ocean — the  Evangelical  Nirvana.  If  this 
line  of  thought  was  not  altogether  healthy,  or  conducive 
to  the  vigorous  performance  of  practical  duty,  it  was,  at  all 
events,  better  than  the  dark  fancy  of  Reprobation.  In  his 
admiration  of  Madame  Guyon,  her  translator  showed  his 
affinity,  and  that  of  Protestants  of  the  same  school,  to 
Fenelon  and  the  Evangelical  element  which  has  lurked  in 
the  Roman  Catholic  church  since  the  days  of  Thomas  a 
Kempis. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

AUTHORSHIP — THE    MORAL    SATIRES. 

Since  his  recovery,  Cowper  had  been  looking  out  for  what 
he  most  needed,  a  pleasant  occupation.  He  tried  draw- 
ing, carpentering,  gardening.  Of  gardening  he  had  always 
been  fond ;  and  he  understood  it,  as  shown  by  the  loving 
though  somewhat  "  stercoraceous "  minuteness  of  some 
passages  in  The  Task.  A  little  greenhouse,  used  as  a  par- 
lour in  summer,  where  he  sat  surrounded  by  beauty  and 
fragrance,  and  lulled  by  pleasant  sounds,  was  another  prod- 
uct of  the  same  pursuit,  and  seems  almost  Elysian  in  that 
dull,  dark  life.  He  also  found  amusement  in  keeping  tame 
hares,  and  he  fancied  that  he  had  reconciled  the  hare  to 
man  and  dog.  His  three  tame  hares  are  among  the  canon- 
ized pets  of  literature,  and  they  were  to  his  genius  what 
"  Sailor  "  was  to  the  genius  of  Byron.  But  Mrs.  Unwin, 
who  had  terrible  reason  for  studying  his  case,  saw  that 
the  thing  most  wanted  was  congenial  employment  for  the 
mind,  and  she  incited  him  to  try  his  hand  at  poetry  on  a 
larger  scale.  He  listened  to  her  advice,  and  when  he  was 
nearly  fifty  years  of  age  became  a  poet.  He  had  acquired 
the  faculty  of  verse-writing,  as  we  have  seen ;  he  had  even 
to  some  extent  formed  his  manner  when  he  was  young. 
Age  must  by  this  time  have  quenched  his  fire,  and  tamed 
his  imagination,  so  that  the  didactic  style  would  suit  him 


48~  COWPER.  [chap. 

best.  In  the  length  of  the  interval  between  his  early 
poems  and  his  great  work  he  resembles  Milton ;  but  wide- 
ly different  in  the  two  cases  had  been  the  current  of  the 
intervening  years. 

Poetry  written  late  in  life  is,  of  course,  free  from  youth- 
ful crudity  and  extravagance.  It  also  escapes  the  youthful 
tendency  to  imitation.  Cowper's  authorship  is  ushered  in 
by  Southey  with  a  history  of  English  poetry;  but  this  is 
hardly  in  place;  Cowper  had  little  connexion  with  any- 
thing before  him.  Even  his  knowledge  of  poetry  was  not 
great.  In  his  youth  he  had  read  the  great  poets,  and  had 
studied  Milton  especially  with  the  ardour  of  intense  admi- 
ration. Nothing  ever  made  him  so  angry  as  Johnson's 
Life  of  Milton.  "  Oh !"  he  cries,  "  I  could  thrash  his  old 
jacket  till  I  made  his  pension  jingle  in  his  pocket." 
Churchill  had  made  a  great — far  too  great — an  impression 
on  him  when  he  was  a  Templar.  Of  Churchill,  if  of  any- 
body, he  must  be  regarded  as  a  follower,  though  only  in 
his  earlier  and  less  successful  poems.  In  expression  he  al- 
ways regarded  as  a  model  the  neat  and  gay  simplicity  of 
Prior.  But  so  little  had  he  kept  up  his  reading  of  any- 
thing but  sermon?1  and  hymns,  that  he  learned  for  the  first 
time  from  Johnson's  Lives  the  existence  of  Collins.  He 
is  the  offspring  of  the  Religious  Revival  rather  than  of 
any  school  of  art.  His  most  important  relation  to  any  of 
his  predecessors  is,  in  fact,  one  of  antagonism  to  the  hard 
glitter  of  Pope. 

In  urging  her  companion  to  write  poetry,  Mrs.  Unwin 
was  on  the  right  path ;  her  puritanism  led  her  astray  in 
the  choice  of  a  theme.  She  suggested  The  Progress  of 
Error  as  a  subject  for  a  "  Moral  Satire."  It  was  unhap- 
pily adopted,  and  The  Progress  of  Error  was  followed  by 
Truth,  Table  Talk,  Expostulation,  Hope,  Charity,  Conver' 


it.]  AUTHORSHIP.  49 

sation,  and  Retirement.  When  the  series  was  published, 
Table  Talk  was  put  first,  being  supposed  to  be  the  lightest 
and  the  most  attractive  to  an  unregenerate  world.  The 
judgment  passed  upon  this  set  of  poems  at  the  time  by 
the  Critical  Review  seems  blasphemous  to  the  fond  biog- 
rapher, and  is  so  devoid  of  modern  smartness  as  to  be  al- 
most interesting  as  a  literary  fossil.  But  it  must  be  deem- 
ed essentially  just,  though  the  reviewer  errs,  as  many  re- 
viewers have  erred,  in  measuring  the  writer's  capacity  by 
the  standard  of  his  first  performance.  "These  poems," 
said  the  Critical  Review,  "  are  written,  as  we  learn  from  the 
title-page,  by  Mr.  Cowper  of  the  Inner  Temple,  who  seems 
to  be  a  man  of  a  sober  and  religious  turn  of  mind,  with  a 
benevolent  heart,  and  a  serious  wish  to  inculcate  the  pre- 
cepts of  morality ;  he  is  not,  however,  possessed  of  any 
superior  abilities  or  the  power  of  genius  requisite  for  so 
arduous  an  undertaking.  .  .  .  He  says  what  is  incontro- 
vertible, and  what  has  been  said  over  and  over  again  with 
much  gravity,  but  says  nothing  new,  sprightly,  or  enter- 
taining ;  travelling  on  a  plain,  level,  flat  road,  with  great 
composure  almost  through  the  whole  long  and  tedious  vol- 
ume, which  is  little  better  than  a  dull  sermon  in  very  in- 
different verse  on  Truth,  the  Progress  of  Error,  Charity, 
and  some  other  grave  subjects.  If  this  author  had  follow- 
ed the  advice  given  by  Caraccioli,  and  which  he  has  chosen 
for  one  of  the  mottoes  prefixed  to  these  poems,  he  would 
have  clothed  his  indisputable  truths  in  some  more  becom- 
ing disguise,  and  rendered  his  work  much  more  agreeable. 
In  its  present  shape  we  cannot  compliment  him  on  its 
beauty ;  for  as  this  bard  himself  sweetly  sings : — 

"  The  clear  harangue,  and  cold  as  it  is  clear, 
Falls  soporific  on  the  listless  ear." 


60  COWPER.  [chap. 

In  justice  to  the  bard  it  ought  to  be  said  that  he  wrote 
under  the  eye  of  the  Rev.  John  Newton,  to  whom  the  de- 
sign had  been  duly  submitted,  and  who  had  given  his  im- 
primatur in  the  shape  of  a  preface  which  took  Johnson, 
the  publisher,  aback  by  its  gravity.  Newton  would  not 
have  sanctioned  any  poetry  which  had  not  a  distinctly  re- 
ligious object,  and  he  received  an  assurance  from  the  poet 
that  the  lively  passages  were  introduced  only  as  honey  on 
the  rim  of  the  medicinal  cup,  to  commend  its  healing  con- 
tents to  the  lips  of  a  giddy  world.  The  Rev.  John  New- 
ton must  have  been  exceedingly  austere  if  he  thought  that 
the  quantity  of  honey  used  was  excessive. 

A  genuine  desire  to  make  society  better  is  always  pres- 
ent in  these  poems,  and  its  presence  lends  them  the  only 
interest  which  they  possess  except  as  historical  monuments 
of  a  religious  movement.  Of  satirical  vigour  they  have 
scarcely  a  semblance.  There  are  three  kinds  of  satire,  cor- 
responding to  as  many  different  views  of  humanity  and 
life ;  the  Stoical,  the  Cynical,  and  the  Epicurean.  Of  Sto- 
ical satire,  with  its  strenuous  hatred  of  vice  and  wrong,  the 
type  is  Juvenal.  Of  Cynical  satire,  springing  from  bitter 
contempt  of  humanity,  the  type  is  Swift's  Gulliver,  while 
its  quintessence  is  embodied  in  his  lines  on  the  Day  of 
Judgment.  Of  Epicurean  satire,  flowing  from  a  contempt 
of  humanity  which  is  not  bitter,  and  lightly  playing  with 
the  weakness  and  vanities  of  mankind,  Horace  is  the  clas- 
sical example.  To  the  first  two  kinds,  Cowper's  nature 
was  totally  alien,  and  when  he  attempts  anything  in  either 
of  those  lines,  the  only  result  is  a  querulous  and  censorious 
acerbity,  in  which  his  real  feelings  had  no  part,  and  which 
on  mature  reflection  offended  his  own  better  taste.  In 
the  Horatian  kind  he  might  have  excelled,  as  the  episode 
of  the  Retired  Statesman  in  one  of  these  poems  shows. 


iv.]  THE  MORAL  SATIRES.  51 

He  might  have  excelled,  that  is,  if  like  Horace  he  had 
known  the  world.  But  he  did  not  know  the  world.  He 
saw  the  "great  Babel"  only  "through  the  loopholes  of 
retreat,"  and  in  the  columns  of  his  weekly  newspaper. 
Even  during  the  years,  long  past,  which  he  spent  in  the 
world,  his  experience  had  been  confined  to  a  small  literary 
circle.  Society  was  to  him  an  abstraction  on  which  he 
discoursed  like  a  pulpiteer.  His  satiric  whip  not  only  has 
no  lash,  it  is  brandished  in  the  air. 

No  man  was  ever  less  qualified  for  the  office  of  a  cen- 
sor; his  judgment  is  at  once  disarmed,  and  a  breach  in  his 
principles  is  at  once  made  by  the  slightest  personal  influ- 
ence. Bishops  are  bad ;  they  are  like  the  Cretans,  evil 
beasts  and  slow  bellies;  but  the  bishop  whose  brother 
Cowper  knows  is  a  blessing  to  the  Church.  Deans  and 
Canons  are  lazy  sinecurists,  but  there  is  a  bright  exception 
in  the  case  of  the  Cowper  who  held  a  golden  stall  at  Dur- 
ham. Grinding  India  is  criminal,  but  Warren  Hastings  is 
acquitted,  because  he  was  with  Cowper  at  Westminster. 
Discipline  was  deplorably  relaxed  in  all  colleges  except 
that  of  which  Cowper's  brother  was  a  fellow.  Pluralities 
and  resignation  bonds,  the  grossest  abuses  of  the  Church, 
were  perfectly  defensible  in  the  case  of  any  friend  or  ac- 
quaintance of  this  Church  Reformer.  Bitter  lines  against 
Popery  inserted  in  The  Task  were  struck  out,  because  the 
writer  had  made  the  acquaintance  of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Throck- 
morton, who  were  Roman  Catholics.  Smoking  was  de- 
testable, except  when  practised  by  dear  Mr.  Bull.  Even 
gambling,  the  blackest  sin  of  fashionable  society,  is  not  to 
prevent  Fox,  the  great  Whig,  from  being  a  ruler  in  Israel. 
Besides,  in  all  his  social  judgments,  Cowper  is  at  a  wrong 
point  of  view.  He  is  always  deluded  by  the  idol  of  his 
cave.  He  writes  perpetually  on  the  twofold  assumption 
3*  19 


52  COWPER.  [chap. 

that  a  life  of  retirement  is  more  favourable  to  virtue  than  a 
life  of  action,  and  that  "  God  made  the  country,  while  man 
made  the  town."  Both  parts  of  the  assumption  are  un- 
true. A  life  of  action  is  more  favourable  to  virtue,  as  a 
rule,  than  a  life  of  retirement,  and  the  development  of 
humanity  is  higher  and  richer,  as  a  rule,  in  the  town  than 
in  the  country.  If  Cowper's  retirement  was  virtuous,  it 
was  so  because  he  was  actively  employed  in  the  exercise 
of  his  highest  faculties :  had  he  been  a  mere  idler,  secluded 
from  his  kind,  his  retirement  would  not  have  been  virtuous 
at  all.  His  flight,  from  the  world  was  rendered  necessary 
by  his  malady,  and  respectable  by  his  literary  work ;  but 
it  was  a  flight  and  not  a  victory.  His  misconception  was 
fostered  and  partly  produced  by  a  religion  which  was  es- 
sentially ascetic,  and  which,  while  it  gave  birth  to  charac- 
ters of  the  highest  and  most  energetic  beneficence,  repre- 
sented salvation  too  little  as  the  reward  of  effort,  too  much 
as  the  reward  of  passive  belief  and  of  spiritual  emotion. 

The  most  readable  of  the  Moral  Satires  is  Retirement,  in 
which  the  writer  is  on  his  own  ground,  expressing  his  gen- 
uine feelings,  and  which  is,  in  fact,  a  foretaste  of  The 
Task.  Expostulation,  a  warning  to  England  from  the  ex- 
ample of  the  Jews,  is  the  best  constructed;  the  rest  are 
totally  wanting  in  unity,  and  even  in  connexion.  In  ali 
there  are  flashes  of  epigrammatic  smartness. 

"  How  shall  I  speak  thee,  or  thy  power  address, 
Thou  God  of  our  idolatry,  the  press  T 
By  thee,  religion,  liberty,  and  laws 
Exert  their  influence,  and  advance  their  cause ; 
By  thee,  worse  plagues  than  Pharaoh's  land  befel, 
Diffused,  make  earth  the  vestibule  of  hell: 
Thou  fountain,  at  which  drink  the  good  and  wise, 
Thou  ever-bubbling  spring  of  endless  lies, 


iv.]  THE  MORAL  SATIRES.  53 

Like  Eden's  dread  probationary  tree, 
Knowledge  of  good  and  evil  is  from  thee." 

Occasionally  there  are  passages  of  higher  merit.  The 
episode  of  statesmen  in  Retirement  has  been  already  men- 
tioned. The  lines  on  the  two  disciples  going  to  Emmaus 
in  Conversation,  though  little  more  than  a  paraphrase  of 
the  Gospel  narrative,  convey  pleasantly  the  Evangelical 
idea  of  the  Divine  Friend.  Cowper  says  in  one  of  his  let- 
ters that  he  had  been  intimate  with  a  man  of  fine  taste 
who  had  confessed  to  him  that  though  he  could  not  sub- 
scribe to  the  truth  of  Christianity  itself,  he  could  never 
read  this  passage  of  St.  Luke  without  being  deeply  affected 
by  it,  and  feeling  that  if  the  stamp  of  divinity  was  im- 
pressed upon  anything  in  the  Scriptures,  it  was  upon  that 
passage. 

"  It  happen'd  on  a  solemn  eventide, 
Soon  after  He  that  was  our  surety  died, 
Two  bosom  friends,  each  pensively  inclined, 
The  scene  of  all  those  sorrows  left  behind, 
Sought  their  own  village,  busied  as  they  went 
In  musings  worthy  of  the  great  event : 
They  spake  of  him  they  loved,  of  him  whose  life, 
Though  blameless,  had  incurr'd  perpetual  strife, 
Whose  deeds  had  left,  in  spite  of  hostile  arts, 
A  deep  memorial  graven  on  their  hearts. 
The  recollection,  like  a  vein  of  ore, 
The  farther  traced  enrich'd  them  still  the  more ; 
They  thought  him,  and  they  justly  thought  him,  one 
Sent  to  do  more  than  he  appear'd  to  have  done, 
To  exalt  a  people,  and  to  place  them  high 
Above  all  else,  and  wonder'd  he  should  die. 
Ere  yet  they  brought  their  journey  to  an  end, 
A  stranger  join'd  them,  courteous  as  a  friend, 


64  COWPER.  [chap. 

And  ask'd  them  with  a  kind  engaging  air 
What  their  affliction  was,  and  begg'd  a  share. 
Inform'd,  he  gather'd  up  the  broken  threat, 
And  truth  and  wisdom  gracing  all  he  said, 
Explain'd,  illustrated,  and  search'd  so  well 
The  tender  theme  on  which  they  chose  to  dwell, 
That  reaching  home,  the  night,  they  said  is  near, 
We  must  not  now  he  parted,  sojourn  here. — 
The  new  acquaintance  soon  became  a  guest, 
And  made  so  welcome  at  their  simple  feast, 
He  bless'd  the  bread,  but  vanish'd  at  the  word, 
And  left  them  both  exclaiming,  'Twas  the  Lord! 
Did  not  our  hearts  feel  all  he  deign'd  to  say, 
Did  they  not  burn  within  us  by  the  way  V 

The  prude  going  to  morning  church  in  Truth  is  a  good 
rendering  of  Hogarth's  picture : — 

"  Yon  ancient  prude,  whose  wither'd  features  show 
She  might  be  young  some  forty  years  ago, 
Her  elbows  pinion'd  close  upon  her  hips, 
Her  head  erect,  her  fan  upon  her  lips, 
Her  eyebrows  arch'd,  her  eyes  both  gone  astray 
To  watch  yon  amorous  couple  in  their  play, 
With  bony  and  unkerchief 'd  neck  defies 
The  rude  inclemency  of  wintry  skies, 
And  sails  with  lappet-head  and  mincing  airs 
Daily,  at  clink  of  bell,  to  morning  prayers. 
To  thrift  and  parsimony  much  inclined, 
She  yet  allows  herself  that  boy  behind ; 
The  shivering  urchin,  bending  as  he  goes, 
With  slipshod  heels,  and  dew-drop  at  his  nose, 
His  predecessor's  coat  advanced  to  wear, 
Which  future  pages  are  yet  doom'd  to  share ; 
Carries  her  Bible  tuck'd  beneath  his  arm, 
And  hides  his  hands  to  keep  his  fingers  warm." 


IV.]  THE  MORAL  SATIRES.  65 

Of  personal  allusions  there  are  a  few ;  if  the  satirist  had 
not  been  prevented  from  indulging  in  them  by  his  taste, 
he  would  have  been  debarred  by  his  ignorance.  Lord 
Chesterfield,  as  the  incarnation  of  the  world  and  the  most 
brilliant  servant  of  the  arch-enemy,  comes  in  for  a  lashing 
under  the  name  of  Petronius. 

"  P  '   >nius !  all  the  muses  weep  for  thee, 
But  every  tear  shall  scald  thy  memory. 
The  graces  too,  while  virtue  at  their  shrine 
Lay  bleeding  under  that  soft  hand  of  thine, 
Felt  each  a  mortal  stab  in  her  own  breast, 
Abhorr'd  the  sacrifice,  and  cursed  the  priest. 
Thou  polish'd  and  high-finish'd  foe  to  truth, 
Gray-beard  corrupter  of  our  listening  youth, 
To  purge  and  skim  away  the  filth  of  vice, 
That  so  refined  it  might  the  more  entice, 
Then  pour  it  on  the  morals  of  thy  son 
To  taint  his  heart,  was  worthy  of  thine  men." 

This  is  about  the  nearest  approach  to  Juvenal  that  the 
Evangelical  satirist  ever  makes.  In  Hope  there  is  a  ve- 
hement vindication  of  the  memory  of  Whitefield.  It  is 
rather  remarkable  that  there  is  no  mention  of  Wesley. 
But  Cowper  belonged  to  the  Evangelical  rather  than  to 
the  Methodist  section.  It  may  be  doubted  whether  the 
living  Whitefield  would  have  been  much  to  his  taste. 

In  the  versification  of  the  moral  satires  there  are  fre- 
quent faults,  especially  in  the  earlier  poems  of  the  series ; 
though  Cowper's  power  of  writing  musical  verse  is  attested 
both  by  the  occasional  poems  and  by  The  Task. 

With  the  Moral  Satires  may  be  coupled,  though  written 
later,  Tirocinium;  or,  a  Review  of  Schools.  Here  Cowper 
has  the  advantage  of  treating  a  subject  which  he  under 


B6  COWPER.  [chap. 

stood,  about  which  he  felt  strongly,  and  desired  for  a  prac- 
tical purpose  to  stir  the  feelings  of  his  readers.  He  set  to 
work  in  bitter  earnest.  "  There  is  a  sting,"  he  says,  "  in 
verse  that  prose  neither  has  nor  can  have ;  and  I  do  not 
know  that  schools  in  the  gross,  and  especially  public  schools, 
have  ever  been  so  pointedly  condemned  before.  But  they 
are  become  a  nuisance,  a  pest,  an  abomination,  and  it  is  fit 
that  the  eyes  and  noses  of  mankind  should  be  opened,  if 
possible,  to  perceive  it."  His  descriptions  of  the  miseries 
which  children  in  his  day  endured,  and,  in  spite  of  all  our 
improvements,  must  still  to  some  extent  endure,  in  board- 
ing-schools, and  of  the  effects  of  the  system  in  estranging 
boys  from  their  parents  and  deadening  home  affections, 
are  vivid  and  true.  Of  course,  the  Public  School  system 
was  not  to  be  overturned  by  rhyming,  but  the  author  of 
Tirocinium  awakened  attention  to  its  faults,  and  probably 
did  something  towards  amending  them.  The  best  lines, 
perhaps,  have  been  already  quoted  in  connexion  with  the 
history  of  the  writer's  boyhood.  There  are,  however,  oth- 
er telling  passages,  such  as  that  on  the  indiscriminate  use 
of  emulation  as  a  stimulus : — 

"  Our  public  hives  of  puerile  resort 
That  are  of  chief  and  most  approved  report, 
To  such  base  hopes  in  many  a  sordid  soul 
Owe  their  repute  in  part,  but  not  the  whole. 
A  principle,  whose  proud  pretensions  pass 
Unquestion'd,  though  the  jewel  be  but  glass, 
That  with  a  world  not  often  over-nice 
Ranks  as  a  virtue,  and  is  yet  a  vice, 
Or  rather  a  gross  compound,  justly  tried, 
Of  envy,  hatred,  jealousy,  and  pride, 
Contributes  most  perhaps  to  enhance  their  fame, 
And  Emulation  is  its  precious  name. 


it.]  THE  MORAL  SATIRES.  57 

Boys  once  on  fire  with  that  contentions  zeal 
Feel  all  the  rage  that  female  rivals  feel ; 
The  prize  of  beauty  in  a  woman's  eyes 
Not  brighter  than  in  theirs  the  scholar's  prize. 
The  spirit  of  that  competition  burns 
With  all  varieties  of  ill  by  turns, 
Each  vainly  magnifies  his  own  success, 
Resents  his  fellow's,  wishes  it  were  less, 
Exults  in  bis  miscarriage  if  he  fail, 
Deems  his  reward  too  great  if  he  prevail, 
And  labours  to  surpass  him  day  and  night, 
Less  for  improvement  than  to  tickle  spite. 
The  spur  is  powerful,  and  I  grant  its  force ; 
It  pricks  the  genius  forward  in  its  course, 
Allows  short  time  for  play,  and  none  for  sloth, 
And  felt  alike  by  each,  advances  both, 
But  judge  where  so  much  evil  intervenes, 
The  end,  though  plausible,  not  worth  the  means. 
Weigh,  for  a  moment,  classical  desert 
Against  a  heart  depraved  and  temper  hurt, 
Hurt,  too,  perhaps  for  life,  for  early  wrong 
Done  to  the  nobler  part,  affects  it  long, 
And  you  are  staunch  indeed  in  learning's  cause, 
If  you  can  crown  a  discipline  that  draws 
Such  mischiefs  after  it,  with  much  applause." 

He  might  have  done  more,  if  he  had  been  able  to  point 
to  the  alternative  of  a  good  day-school,  as  a  combination 
of  home  affections  with  the  superior  teachings  hardly  to 
be  found,  except  in  a  large  school,  and  which  Cowper,  in 
drawing  his  comparison  between  the  two  systems,  fails  to 
take  into  account. 

To  the  same  general  class  of  poems  belongs  Anti-The- 
lypthora,  which  it  is  due  to  Cowper's  memory  to  say  was 
not  published  in  his  lifetime.     It  is  an  angry  pasquinade 


6S  COWPER.  [chap. 

on  an  absurd  book  advocating  polygamy  on  Biblical 
grounds,  by  the  Rev.  Martin  Madan,  Cowper's  quoadam 
spiritual  counsellor.  Alone  among  Cowper's  works  it  has 
a  taint  of  coarseness. 

The  Moral  Satires  pleased  Franklin,  to  whom  their  social 
philosophy  was  congenial,  as  at  a  later  day,  in  common 
with  all  Cowper's  works,  they  pleased  Cobden,  who  no 
doubt  specially  relished  the  passage  in  Charity,  embody- 
ing the  philanthropic  sentiment  of  Free  Trade.  There 
was  a  trembling  consultation  as  to  the  expediency  of 
bringing  the  volume  under  the  notice  of  Johnson.  "  One 
of  his  pointed  sarcasms,  if  he  should  happen  to  be  dis- 
pleased, would  soon  find  its  way  into  all  companies,  and 
spoil  the  sale."  "  I  think  it  would  be  well  to  send  in  our 
joint  names,  accompanied  with  a  handsome  card,  such  an 
one  as  you  will  know  how  to  fabricate,  and  such  as  may 
predispose  him  to  a  favourable  perusal  of  the  book,  by 
coaxing  him  into  a  good  temper ;  for  he  is  a  great  bear, 
with  all  his  learning  and  penetration."  Fear  prevailed; 
but  it  seems  that  the  book  found  its  way  into  the  dicta- 
tor's hands,  that  his  judgment  on  it  was  kind,  and  that  he 
even  did  something  to  temper  the  wind  of  adverse  criti- 
cism to  the  shorn  lamb.  Yet  parts  of  it  were  likely  to 
incur  his  displeasure  as  a  Tory,  as  a  Churchman,  and  as 
one  who  greatly  preferred  Fleet  Street  to  the  beauties  of 
nature;  while  with  the  sentimental  misery  of  the  writer, 
he  could  have  had  no  sympathy  whatever.  Of  the  incom- 
pleteness of  Johnson's  view  of  character  there  could  be  no 
better  instance  than  the  charming  weakness  of  Cowper. 
Thurlow  and  Colraan  did  not  even  acknowledge  their 
copies,  and  were  lashed  for  their  breach  of  friendship 
with  rather  more  vigour  than  the  Moral  Satires  display, 
in   The   Valedictory,  which  unluckily  survived  for  post* 


THE  MORAL  SATIRES.  69 

humous   publication  when  the  culprits  had  made  their 
peace. 

Cowper  certainly  misread  himself  if  he  believed  that 
ambition,  even  literary  ambition,  was  a  large  element  in 
his  character.  But  having  published,  he  felt  a  keen  inter- 
est in  the  success  of  his  publication.  Yet  he  took  its  fail- 
ure and  the  adverse  criticism  very  calmly.  With  all  his 
sensitiveness,  from  irritable  and  suspicious  egotism,  such 
as  is  the  most  common  cause  of  moral  madness,  he  was 
singularly  free.  In  this  respect  his  philosophy  served  him 
well. 

It  may  safely  be  said  that  the  Moral  Satires  would  have 
sunk  into  oblivion  if  they  had  not  been  buoyed  up  by  The 
Task. 

E 


CHAPTER  V. 

THE  TASK. 

Mrs.  Unwin's  influence  produced  the  Moral  Satires.  The 
Task  was  born  of  a  more  potent  inspiration.  One  day 
Mrs.  Jones,  the  wife  of  a  neighbouring  clergyman,  came 
into  Olney  to  shop,  and  with  her  came  her  sister,  Lady 
Austen,  the  widow  of  a  Baronet,  a  woman  of  the  world, 
who  had  lived  much  in  France,  gay,  sparkling  and  viva- 
cious, but  at  the  same  time  full  of  feeling  even  to  over- 
flowing. The  apparition  acted  like  magic  on  the  recluse. 
He  desired  Mrs.  Unwin  to  ask  the  two  ladies  to  stay  to 
tea ;  then  shrank  from  joining  the  party  which  he  had  him- 
self invited ;  ended  by  joining  it,  and,  his  shyness  giving 
way  with  a  rush,  engaged  in  animated  conversation  with 
Lady  Austen,  and  walked  with  her  part  of  the  way  home. 
On  her  an  equally  great  effect  appears  to  have  been  pro- 
duced. A  warm  friendship  at  once  sprang  up,  and  be- 
fore long  Lady  Austen  had  verses  addressed  to  her  as  Sis- 
ter Anne.  Her  ladyship,  on  her  part,  was  smitten  with  a 
great  love  of  retirement,  and  at  the  same  time  with  great 
admiration  for  Mr.  Scott,  the  curate  of  Olney,  as  a  preacher, 
and  she  resolved  to  fit  up  for  herself  "  that  part  of  our  great 
building  which  is  at  present  occupied  by  Dick  Coleman, 
his  wife  and  child,  and  a  thousand  rats."  That  a  woman 
of  fashion,  accustomed  to  French  salons,  should  choose 
such  an  abode,  with  a  pair  of  Puritans  for  her  only  soci- 


chap,  v.]  THE  TASK.  61 

ety,  seems  to  show  that  one  of  the  Puritans  at  least  must 
have  possessed  great  powers  of  attraction.  Better  quar- 
ters were  found  for  her  in  the  Vicarage ;  and  the  private 
way  between  the  gardens,  which  apparently  had  been 
closed  since  Newton's  departure,  was  opened  again. 

Lady  Austen's  presence  evidently  wrought  on  Cowper 
like  an  elixir :  "  From  a  scene  of  the  most  uninterrupted 
retirement,"  he  writes  to  Mrs.  Unwin,  "  we  have  passed  at 
once  into  a  state  of  constant  engagement.  Not  that  our 
society  is  much  multiplied ;  the  addition  of  an  individual 
has  made  all  this  difference.  Lady  Austen  and  we  pass 
our  days  alternately  at  each  other's  Chateau.  In  the 
morning  I  walk  with  one  or  other  of  the  ladies,  and  in  the 
evening  wind  thread.  Thus  did  Hercules,  and  thus  proba- 
bly did  Samson,  and  thus  do  I ;  and,  were  both  those  he- 
roes living,  I  should  not  fear  to  challenge  them  to  a  trial 
of  skill  in  that  business,  or  doubt  to  beat  them  both."  It 
was,  perhaps,  while  he  was  winding  thread  that  Lady  Aus- 
ten told  him  the  story  of  John  Gilpin.  He  lay  awake  at 
night  laughing  over  it,  and  next  morning  produced  the 
ballad.  It  soon  became  famous,  and  was  recited  by  Hen- 
derson, a  popular  actor,  on  the  stage,  though,  as  its  gentil- 
ity was  doubtful,  its  author  withheld  his  name.  He  af- 
terwards fancied  that  this  wonderful  piece  of  humour  had 
been  written  in  a  mood  of  the  deepest  depression.  Prob- 
ably he  had  written  it  in  an  interval  of  high  spirits  be- 
tween two  such  moods.  Moreover,  he  sometimes  exag- 
gerated his  own  misery.  He  will  begin  a  letter  with  a  de 
profundis,  and  towards  the  end  forget  his  sorrows,  glide 
into  commonplace  topics,  and  write  about  them  in  the 
ordinary  strain.  Lady  Austen  inspired  John  Gilpin.  She 
inspired,  it  seems,  the  lines  on  the  loss  of  the  Royal 
George.     She  did  more:  she  invited  Cowper  to  try  his 


62  COWPER.  [chap. 

hand  at  something  considerable  in  blank  verse.  When 
he  asked  her  for  a  subject,  she  was  happier  in  her  choice 
than  the  lady  who  had  suggested  the  Progress  of  Error. 
She  bade  him  take  the  sofa  on  which  she  was  reclining, 
and  which,  sofas  being  then  uncommon,  was  a  more  strik- 
ing and  suggestive  object  than  it  would  be  now.  The 
right  chord  was  struck ;  the  subject  was  accepted ;  and 
The  Sofa  grew  into  The  Task ;  the  title  of  the  song  re- 
minding us  that  it  was  "commanded  by  the  fair."  As 
Paradise  Lost  is  to  militant  Puritanism,  so  is  The  Task  to 
the  religious  movement  of  its  author's  time.  To  its  char- 
acter as  the  poem  of  a  sect  it  no  doubt  owed  and  still 
owes  much  of  its  popularity.  Not  only  did  it  give  beau- 
tiful and  effective  expression  to  the  sentiments  of  a  large 
religious  party,  but  it  was  about  the  only  poetry  that  a 
strict  Methodist  or  Evangelical  could  read ;  while  to  those 
whose  worship  was  unritualistic,  and  who  were  debarred 
by  their  principles  from  the  theatre  and  the  concert,  any- 
thing in  the  way  of  art  that  was  not  illicit  must  have  been 
eminently  welcome.  But  The  Task  has  merits  of  a  more 
universal  and  enduring  kind.  Its  author  himself  says  of 
it : — "  If  the  work  cannot  boast  a  regular  plan  (in  which 
respect,  however,  I  do  not  think  it  altogether  indefensi- 
ble), it  may  yet  boast  that  the  reflections  are  naturally 
suggested  always  by  the  preceding  passage,  and  that,  ex- 
cept the  fifth  book,  which  is  rather  of  a  political  aspect, 
the  whole  has  one  tendency,  to  discountenance  the  mod- 
ern enthusiasm  after  a  London  life,  and  to  recommend 
rural  ease  and  leisure  as  friendly  to  the  cause  of  piety  and 
virtue."  A  regular  plan,  assuredly,  The  Task  has  not.  It 
rambles  through  a  vast  variety  of  subjects,  religious,  politi- 
cal, social,  philosophical,  and  horticultural,  with  as  little  of 
method  as  its  author  used  in  taking  his  morning  walks. 


v.]  THE  TASK.  63 

Nor,  as  Mr.  Benham  has  shown,  are  the  reflections,  as  a 
rule,  naturally  suggested  by  the  preceding  passage.  From 
the  use  of  a  sofa  by  the  gouty  to  those  who,  being  free 
from  gout,  do  not  need  sofas  —  and  so  to  country  walks 
and  country  life,  is  hardly  a  natural  transition.  It  is  hard- 
ly a  natural  transition  from  the  ice  palace  built  by  a  Rus- 
sian despot,  to  despotism  and  politics  in  general.  But  if 
Cowper  deceives  himself  in  fancying  that  there  is  a  plan 
or  a  close  connexion  of  parts,  he  is  right  as  to  the  exist- 
ence of  a  pervading  tendency.  The  praise  of  retirement 
and  of  country  life  as  most  friendly  to  piety  and  virtue, 
is  the  perpetual  refrain  of  The  Task,  if  not  its  definite 
theme.  From  this  idea  immediately  flow  the  best  and 
the  most  popular  passages :  those  which  please  apart  from 
anything  peculiar  to  a  religious  school ;  those  which  keep 
the  poem  alive;  those  which  have  found  their  way  into 
the  heart  of  the  nation,  and  intensified  the  taste  for  rural 
and  domestic  happiness,  to  which  they  most  winningly 
appeal.  In  these  Cowper  pours  out  his  inmost  feelings, 
with  the  liveliness  of  exhilaration,  enhanced  by  contrast 
with  previous  misery.  The  pleasures  of  the  country  and 
of  home — the  walk,  the  garden,  but  above  all  the  "  intimate 
delights  "  of  the  winter  evening,  the  snug  parlour,  with  its 
close-drawn  curtains  shutting  out  the  stormy  night,  the 
steaming  and  bubbling  tea-urn,  the  cheerful  circle,  the 
book  read  aloud,  the  newspaper  through  which  we  look 
out  into  the  unquiet  world — are  painted  by  the  writer  with 
a  heartfelt  enjoyment  which  infects  the  reader.  These 
are  not  the  joys  of  a  hero,  nor  are  they  the  joys  of  an 
Alcseus  "  singing  amidst  the  clash  of  arms,  or  when  he 
had  moored  on  the  wet  shore  his  storm-tost  barque."  But 
they  are  pure  joys,  and  they  present  themselves  in  compe- 
tition with  those  of  Ranelagh  and  the  Basset  Table,  which 


64  COWPER.  [chap. 

are  not  heroic  or  even  masculine,  any  more  than  they  are 
pure. 

The  well-known  passages  at  the  opening  of  The  Winter 
Evening  are  the  self-portraiture  of  a  soul  in  bliss — such 
bliss  as  that  soul  could  know — and  the  poet  would  have 
found  it  very  difficult  to  depict  to  himself  by  the  utmost 
effort  of  his  religious  imagination  any  paradise  which  he 
would  really  have  enjoyed  more. 

"  Now  stir  the  fire,  and  close  the  shutters  fast, 
Let  fall  the  curtains,  wheel  the  sofa  round, 
And  while  the  bubbling  and  loud-hissing  urn 
Throws  up  a  steamy  column,  and  the  cups 
That  cheer  but  not  inebriate,  wait  on  each, 
So  let  us  welcome  peaceful  evening  in. 

#  #  #  # 

This  folio  of  four  pages,  happy  work ! 

Which  not  even  critics  criticise,  that  holds 

Inquisitive  attention  while  I  read 

Fast  bound  in  chains  of  silence,  which  the  fair, 

Though  eloquent  themselves,  yet  fear  to  break, 

What  is  it  but  a  map  of  busy  life, 

Its  fluctuations  and  its  vast  concerns  ? 

*  #  #  * 

'Tis  pleasant  through  the  loop-holes  of  retreat 
To  peep  at  such  a  world.     To  see  the  stir 
Of  the  great  Babel  and  not  feel  the  crowd. 
To  hear  the  roar  she  sends  through  all  her  gates 
At  a  safe  distance,  where  the  dying  sound 
Falls  a  soft  murmur  on  the  injured  ear. 
Thus  sitting  and  surveying  thus  at  ease 
The  globe  and  its  concerns,  I  seem  advanced 
To  some  secure  and  more  than  mortal  height, 
That  liberates  and  exempts  me  from  them  all, 


v.]  THE  TASK.  88 

It  turns  submitted  to  my  view,  turns  round 

With  all  its  generations ;  I  behold 

The  tumult  and  am  still.     The  sound  of  war 

Has  lost  its  terrors  ere  it  reaches  me, 

Grieves  but  alarms  me  not.     I  mourn  the  pride 

And  avarice  that  make  man  a  wolf  to  man, 

Hear  the  faint  echo  of  those  brazen  throats 

By  which  he  speaks  the  language  of  his  heart, 

And  sigh,  but  never  tremble  at  the  sound. 

He  travels  and  expatiates,  as  the  bee 

From  flower  to  flower,  so  he  from  land  to  land ; 

The  manners,  customs,  policy  of  all 

Pay  contribution  to  the  store  he  gleans ; 

He  sucks  intelligence  in  every  clime, 

And  spreads  the  honey  of  his  deep  research 

At  his  return,  a  rich  repast  for  me. 

He  travels,  and  I  too.     I  tread  his  deck, 

Ascend  his  topmast,  through  his  peering  eyes 

Discover  countries,  with  a  kindred  heart 

Suffer  his  woes  and  share  in  his  escapes, 

While  fancy,  like  the  finger  of  a  clock, 

Buns  the  great  circuit,  and  is  still  at  home. 

Oh,  winter !  ruler  of  the  inverted  year, 
Thy  scatter'd  hair  with  sleet  like  ashes  fill'd, 
Thy  breath  congeal'd  upon  thy  lips,  thy  cheeks 
Fringed  with  a  beard  made  white  with  other  snow* 
Than  those  of  age ;  thy  forehead  wrapt  in  clouds, 
A  leafless  branch  thy  sceptre,  and  thy  throne 
A  sliding  car  indebted  to  no  wheels, 
And  urged  by  storms  along  its  slippery  way ; 
I  love  thee,  all  unlovely  as  thou  seem'st, 
And  dreaded  as  thou  art.     Thou  hold'st  the  sun 
A  prisoner  in  the  yet  undawning  East, 
Shortening  his  journey  between  morn  and  noon, 
And  hurrying  him  impatient  of  his  stay 
Down  to  the  rosy  West.     But  kindly  still 


66  COWPER.  [chat. 

Compensating  his  loss  with  added  hours 
Of  social  converse  and  instructive  ease, 
And  gathering  at  short  notice  in  one  group 
The  family  dispersed  by  daylight  and  its  cares. 
I  crown  thee  king  of  intimate  delights, 
Fireside  enjoyments,  home-born  happiness, 
And  all  the  comforts  that  the  lowly  roof 
Of  undisturb'd  retirement,  and  the  hours 
Of  long  uninterrupted  evening  know." 

The  writer  of  The  Task  also  deserves  the  crown  which 
he  has  himself  claimed  as  a  close  observer  and  truthful 
painter  of  nature.  In  this  respect,  he  challenges  compari- 
son with  Thomson.  The  range  of  Thomson  is  far  wider ; 
he  paints  nature  in  all  her  moods,  Cowper  only  in  a  few, 
and  those  the  gentlest,  though  he  has  said  of  himself  that 
"  he  was  always  an  admirer  of  thunder-storms,  even  before 
he  knew  whose  voice  he  heard  in  them,  but  especially  of 
thunder  rolling  over  the  great  waters."  The  great  waters 
he  had  not  seen  for  many  years ;  he  had  never,  so  far  as 
we  know,  seen  mountains,  hardly  even  high  hills ;  his  only 
landscape  was  the  flat  country  watered  by  the  Ouse.  On 
the  other  hand,  he  is  perfectly  genuine,  thoroughly  Eng 
lish,  entirely  emancipated  from  false  Arcadianism,  the 
yoke  of  which  still  sits  heavily  upon  Thomson,  whose 
"  muse,"  moreover,  is  perpetually  "  wafting "  him  away 
from  the  country  and  the  climate  which  he  knows  to  coun 
tries  and  climates  which  he  does  not  know,  and  which  he 
describes  in  the  style  of  a  prize  poem.  Cowper's  land- 
scapes, too,  are  peopled  with  the  peasantry  of  England ; 
Thomson's,  with  Damons,  Palsemons,  and  Musidoras,  trick- 
ed out  in  the  sentimental  costume  of  the  sham  idyl.  In 
Thomson,  you  always  find  the  effort  of  the  artist  working 
up  a  description ;  in  Cowper,  you  find  no  effort ;  the  scene 


T.]  THE  TASK.  67 

is  simply  mirrored  on  a  mind  of  great  sensibility  and  high 
pictorial  power. 

"And  witness,  dear  companion  of  my  walks, 
Whose  arm  this  twentieth  winter  I  perceive 
Fast  lock'd  in  mine,  with  pleasure  such  as  love, 
Confirm'd  by  long  experience  of  thy  worth 
And  well-tried  virtues,  could  alone  inspire — 
Witness  a  joy  that  thou  hast  doubled  long. 
Thou  know'st  my  praise  of  nature  most  sincere, 
And  that  my  raptures  are  not  conjured  up 
To  serve  occasions  of  poetic  pomp, 
But  genuine,  and  art  partner  of  them  all. 
How  oft  upon  yon  eminence  our  pace 
Has  slacken'd  to  a  pause,  and  we  have  borne 
The  ruffling  wind,  scarce  conscious  that  it  blew, 
While  Admiration,  feeding  at  the  eye, 
And  still  unsated,  dwelt  upon  the  scene ! 
Thence  with  what  pleasure  have  we  just  discerned 
The  distant  plough  slow  moving,  and  beside 
His  labouring  team  that  swerved  not  from  the  track, 
The  sturdy  swain  diminish'd  to  a  boy ! 
Here  Ouse,  slow  winding  through  a  level  plain 
Of  spacious  meads,  with  cattle  sprinkled  o'er, 
Conducts  the  eye  along  his  sinuous  course 
Delighted.     There,  fast  rooted  in  their  bank, 
Stand,  never  overlook'd,  our  favourite  elms, 
That  screen  the  herdsman's  solitary  hut ; 
While  far  beyond,  and  overthwart  the  stream, 
That,  as  with  molten  glass,  inlays  the  vale, 
The  sloping  land  recedes  into  the  clouds ; 
Displaying  on  its  varied  side  the  grace 
.Of  hedge-row  beauties  numberless,  square  tower, 
Tall  spire,  from  which  the  sound  of  cheerful  bells 
Just  undulates  upon  the  listening  ear, 
Groves,  heaths,  and  smoking  villages,  remote. 
4  20 


68  COWPER.  [chap. 

Scenes  must  be  beautiful,  which,  daily  viewed, 
Please  daily,  and  whose  novelty  survives 
Long  knowledge  and  the  scrutiny  of  years — 
Praise  justly  due  to  those  that  I  describe." 

This  is  evidently  genuine  and  spontaneous.  "We  stand 
with  Cowper  and  Mrs.  Unwin  on  the  hill  in  the  ruffling 
wind,  like  them,  scarcely  conscious  that  it  blows,  and  feed 
admiration  at  the  eye  upon  the  rich  and  thoroughly  Eng- 
lish champaign  that  is  outspread  below. 

"Nor  rural  sights  alone, but  rural  sounds, 
Exhilarate  the  spirit,  and  restore 
The  tone  of  languid  Nature.     Mighty  winds, 
That  sweep  the  skirt  of  some  far-spreading  wood 
Of  ancient  growth,  make  music  not  unlike 
The  dash  of  Ocean  on  his  winding  shore, 
And  lull  the  spirit  while  they  fill  the  mind ; 
Unnumber'd  branches  waving  in  the  blast, 
And  all  their  leaves  fast  fluttering,  all  at  once. 
Nor  less  composure  waits  upon  the  roar 
Of  distant  floods,  or  on  the  softer  voice 
Of  neighbouring  fountain,  or  of  rills  that  slip 
Through  the  cleft  rock,  and  chiming  as  they  fall 
Upon  loose  pebbles,  lose  themselves  at  length 
In  matted  grass  that  with  a  livelier  green 
Betrays  the  secret  of  their  silent  course. 
Nature  inanimate  employs  sweet  sounds, 
But  animated  nature  sweeter  still, 
To  soothe  and  satisfy  the  human  ear. 
Ten  thousand  warblers  cheer  the  day,  and  one 
The  livelong  night :  nor  these  alone,  whose  notes 
Nice-fingerM  Art  must  emulate  in  vain, 
But  cawing  rooks,  and  kites  that  swim  sublime 
In  still-repeated  circles,  screaming  loud, 
The  jay,  the  pie,  and  e'en  the  boding  owl 


T.]  THE  TASK.  69 

That  hails  the  rising  moon,  have  charms  for  me. 
Sounds  inharmonious  in  themselves  and  harsh, 
Yet  heard  in  scenes  where  peace  forever  reigns, 
And  only  there,  please  highly  for  their  sake." 

Affection  such  as  the  last  lines  display  for  the  inharmo- 
nious as  well  as  the  harmonious,  for  the  uncomely  as  well 
as  the  comely  parts  of  nature,  has  been  made  familiar  by 
Wordsworth,  but  it  was  new  in  the  time  of  Cowper.  Let 
us  compare  a  landscape  painted  by  Pope  in  his  Windsor 
forest,  with  the  lines  just  quoted,  and  we  shall  see  the  dif- 
ference between  the  art  of  Cowper  and  that  of  the  Augus- 
tan age. 

"  Here  waving  groves  a  checkered  scene  display, 
And  part  admit  and  part  exclude  the  day, 
As  some  coy  nymph  her  lover's  warm  address 
Not  quite  indulges,  nor  can  quite  repress. 
There  interspersed  in  lawns  and  opening  glades 
The  trees  arise  that  share  each  other's  shades ; 
Here  in  full  light  the  russet  plains  extend, 
There  wrapt  in  clouds,  the  hlnish  hills  ascend, 
E'en  the  wild  heath  displays  her  purple  dyes, 
And  midst  the  desert  fruitful  fields  arise, 
That  crowned  with  tufted  trees  and  springing  corn, 
Like  verdant  isles  the  sable  waste  adorn." 

The  low  Berkshire  hills  wrapt  in  clouds  on  a  sunny 
day;  a  sable  desert  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Windsor; 
fruitful  fields  arising  in  it,  and  crowned  with  tufted  trees 
and  springing  corn — evidently  Pope  saw  all  this,  not  on 
an  eminence,  in  the  ruffling  wind,  but  in  his  study  with 
his  back  to  the  window,  and  the  Georgics  or  a  translation 
of  them  before  him. 

Here,  again,  is  a  little  picture  of  rural  life  from  the  Win- 
ter Morning  Walk, 


70  COWPER.  [chap. 

"  The  cattle  mourn  in  corners,  where  the  fence 
Screens  them,  and  seem  half-petrified  to  sleep 
In  unrecumbent  sadness.    There  they  wait 
Their  wonted  fodder;  not  like  hungering  man, 
Fretful  if  unsnpplied ;  but  silent,  1  >fce«x, 
And  patient  of  the  slow-paced  swain's  delay. 
He  from  the  stack  carves  out  the  accustomed  load. 
Deep-plunging,  and  again  deep  plunging  oft, 
His  oroad  keen  knife  into  the  solid  mass : 
Smooth  as  a  wall  the  upright  remnant  stands, 
With  such  undeviating  and  even  force 
He  severs  it  away :  no  needless  care, 
Lest  storms  should  overset  the  leaning  pile 
Deciduous,  or  its  own  unbalanced  weight. 
Forth  goes  the  woodman,  leaving  unconcern'd 
The  cheerful  haunts  of  man ;  to  wield  the  axe 
And  drive  the  wedge  in  yonder  forest  drear, 
From  morn  to  eve,  his  solitary  task. 
Shaggy,  and  lean,  and  shrewd,  with  pointed  ears 
And  tail  cropp'd  short,  half  lurcher  and  half  cur, 
His  dog  attends  him.     Close  behind  his  heel 
Now  creeps  he  slow ;  and  now,  with  many  a  frisk 
Wide-scampering,  snatches  up  the  drifted  snow 
With  ivory  teeth,  or  ploughs  it  with  his  snout ; 
Then  shakes  his  powder'd  coat,  and  barks  for  joy. 
Heedless  of  all  his  pranks,  the  sturdy  churl 
Moves  right  toward  the  mark ;  nor  stops  for  aught, 
But  now  and  then  with  pressure  of  his  thumb 
To  adjust  the  fragrant  charge  of  a  short  tube, 
That  fumes  beneath  his  nose :  the  trailing  cloud 
Streams  far  behind  him,  scenting  all  the  air." 

The  minutely  faithful  description  of  the  man  carving 
the  load  of  hay  out  of  the  stack,  and  again  those  of  the 
gambolling  dog,  and  the  woodman  smoking  his  pipe  with 
the  stream  of  smoke  trailing  behind  him,  remind  us  of  the 


v.]  THE  TASK.  71 

touches  of  minute  fidelity  in  Homer.     The  same  may  be 
said  of  many  other  passages. 

"  The  sheepfold  here 
Pours  out  its  fleecy  tenants  o'er  the  glebe. 
At  first,  progressive  as  a  stream  they  seek 
The  middle  field;  but,  scatter1 d  by  degrees, 
Each  to  his  choice,  soon  whiten  all  the  land. 
There  from  the  sun-burnt  hay-field  homeward  creeps 
The  loaded  wain;  while  lighten'd  of  its  charge, 
The  wain  that  meets  it  passes  swiftly  by  ; 
The  boorish  driver  leaning  o'er  his  team 
Vociferous  and  impatient  of  delay." 

A  specimen  of  more  imaginative  and  distinctly  poetical 
description  is  the  well-known  passage  on  evening,  in  writ- 
ing which  Cowper  would  seem  to  have  had  Collins  in  his 
mind. 

"  Come,  Evening,  once  again,  season  of  peace ; 
Return,  sweet  Evening,  and  continue  long ! 
Methinks  I  see  thee  in  the  streaky  west, 
With  matron-step  slow-moving,  while  the  Night 
Treads  on  thy  sweeping  train ;  one  hand  employed 
In  letting  fall  the  curtain  of  repose 
On  bird  and  beast,  the  other  charged  for  man 
With  sweet  oblivion  of  the  cares  of  day : 
Not  sumptuously  adorn'd,  nor  needing  aid, 
Like  homely-featured  Night,  of  clustering  gems! 
A  star  or  two  just  twinkling  on  thy  brow 
Suffices  thee ;  save  that  the  moon  is  thine 
No  less  than  hers,  not  worn  indeed  on  high 
With  ostentatious  pageantry,  but  set 
With  modest  grandeur  in  thy  purple  zone, 
Resplendent  less,  but  of  an  ampler  round." 

Beyond  this  line  Cowper  does  not  go,  and  had  no  idea 


12  COWPER.  [chap. 

of  going;  he  never  thinks  of  lending  a  soul  to  material 
nature  as  Wordsworth  and  Shelley  do.  He  is  the  poetic 
counterpart  of  Gainsborough,  as  the  great  descriptive  poets 
of  a  later  and  more  spiritual  day  are  the  counterparts  of 
Turner.  We  have  said  that  Cowper's  peasants  are  genu- 
ine as  well  as  his  landscape ;  he  might  have  been  a  more 
exquisite  Crabbe  if  he  had  turned  his  mind  that  way,  in- 
stead of  writing  sermons  about  a  world  which  to  him  was 
little  more  than  an  abstraction,  distorted,  moreover,  and 
discoloured  by  his  religious  asceticism. 

"  Poor,  yet  industrious,  modest,  quiet,  neat, 
Such  claim  compassion  in  a  night  like  this, 
And  have  a  friend  in  every  feeling  heart. 
Warm'd,  while  it  lasts,  by  labour,  all  day  long 
They  brave  the  season,  and  yet  find  at  eve, 
HI  clad,  and  fed  but  sparely,  time  to  cool. 
The  frugal  housewife  trembles  when  she  lights 
Her  scanty  stock  of  brushwood,  blazing  clear, 
But  dying  soon,  like  all  terrestrial  joys. 
The  few  small  embers  left,  she  nurses  well ; 
And,  while  her  infant  race,  with  outspread  hands 
And  crowded  knees  sit  cowering  o'er  the  sparks, 
Retires,  content  to  quake,  so  they  be  warm'd. 
The  man  feels  least,  as  more  inured  than  she 
To  winter,  and  the  current  in  his  veins 
More  briskly  moved  by  his  severer  toil ; 
Yet  he,  too,  finds  his  own  distress  in  theirs. 
The  taper  soon  extinguish'd,  which  I  saw 
Dangled  along  at  the  cold  finger's  end 
Just  when  the  day  declined ;  and  the  brown  loaf 
Lodged  on  the  shelf,  half  eaten  without  sauce 
Of  savoury  cheese,  or  butter,  costlier  still : 
Sleep  seems  their  only  refuge :  for,  alas ! 
Where  penury  is  felt  the  thought  is  chained, 


v.]  THE  TASK.  73 

And  sweet  colloquial  pleasures  are  but  few ! 
With  all  this  thrift  they  thrive  not.     All  the  care 
Ingenious  Parsimony  takes,  but  just 
Saves  the  small  inventory,  bed  and  stool, 
Skillet,  and  old  carved  chest,  from  public  sale. 
They  live,  and  live  without  extorted  alms 
From  grudging  hands :  but  other  boast  have  none 
To  soothe  their  honest  pride  that  scorns  to  beg, 
Nor  comfort  else,  but  in  their  mutual  love." 

Here  we  have  the  plain,  unvarnished  record  of  visitings 
among  the  poor  of  Olney.  The  last  two  lines  are  simple 
truth  as  well  as  the  rest. 

"  In  some  passages,  especially  in  the  second  book,  you 
will  observe  me  very  satirical."  In  the  second  book  of 
The  Task  there  are  some  bitter  things  about  the  clergy ; 
and  in  the  passage  pourtraying  a  fashionable  preacher, 
there  is  a  touch  of  satiric  vigour,  or  rather  of  that  power 
of  comic  description  which  was  one  of  the  writer's  gifts. 
But  of  Cowper  as  a  satirist  enough  has  been  said. 

"  What  there  is  of  a  religious  cast  in  the  volume  I  have 
thrown  towards  the  end  of  it,  for  two  reasons ;  first,  that  I 
might  not  revolt  the  reader  at  his  entrance ;  and,  secondly, 
that  my  best  impressions  might  be  made  last.  Were  I  to 
write  as  many  volumes  as  Lope  de  Vega  or  Voltaire,  not 
one  of  them  would  be  without  this  tincture.  If  the  world 
like  it  not,  so  much  the  worse  for  them.  I  make  all  the 
concessions  I  can,  that  I  may  please  them,  but  I  will  not 
please  them  at  the  expense  of  conscience."  The  passages 
of  The  Task  penned  by  conscience,  taken  together,  form  a 
lamentably  large  proportion  of  the  poem.  An  ordinary 
reader  can  be  carried  through  them,  if  at  all,  only  by  his 
interest  in  the  history  of  opinion,  or  by  the  companion- 
ship of  the  writer,  who  is  always  present,  as  Walton  is  in 


74  COWPER.  [chap. 

his  Angler,  as  White  is  in  his  Selbourne.  Cowper,  how- 
ever, even  at  his  worst,  is  a  highly  cultivated  Methodist : 
if  he  is  sometimes  enthusiastic,  and  possibly  superstitious, 
he  is  never  coarse  or  unctuous.  He  speaks  with  contempt 
of  "  the  twang  of  the  conventicle."  Even  his  enthusiasm 
had  by  this  time  been  somewhat  tempered.  Just  after  his 
conversion  he  used  to  preach  to  everybody.  He  had  found 
out,  as  he  tells  us  himself,  that  this  was  a  mistake,  that 
"the  pulpit  was  for  preaching;  the  garden,  the  parlour, 
and  the  walk  abroad  were  for  friendly  and  agreeable  con- 
versation." It  may  have  been  his  consciousness  of  a  cer- 
tain change  in  himself  that  deterred  him  from  taking 
Newton  into  his  confidence  when  he  was  engaged  upon 
The  Task.  The  worst  passages  are  those  which  betray  a 
fanatical  antipathy  to  natural  science,  especially  that  in  the 
third  book  (150-190).  The  episode  of  the  judgment  of 
Heaven  on  the  young  atheist  Misagathus,  in  the  sixth  book, 
is  also  fanatical  and  repulsive. 

Puritanism  had  come  into  violent  collision  with  the  tem- 
poral power,  and  had  contracted  a  character  fiercely  polit- 
ical and  revolutionary.  Methodism  fought  only  against  un- 
belief, vice,  and  the  coldness  of  the  Establishment;  it  was 
in  no  way  political,  much  less  revolutionary ;  by  the  recoil 
from  the  atheism  of  the  French  Revolution,  its  leaders,  in- 
cluding Wesley  himself,  were  drawn  rather  to  the  Tory  side. 
Cowper,  we  have  said,  always  remained  in  principle  what 
he  had  been  born,  a  Whig,  an  unrevolutionary  Whig,  an 
"Old  Whig,"  to  adopt  the  phrase  made  canonical  by  Burke. 

"  "lis  liberty  alone  that  gives  the  flower 
Of  fleeting  life  its  lustre  and  perfume, 
And  we  are  weeds  without  it.     All  constraint 
Except  what  wisdom  lays  on  evil  men 
Is  evil." 


v.]  THE  TASK.  75 

The  sentiment  of  these  lines,  which  were  familiar  and 
dear  to  Cobden,  is  tempered  by  judicious  professions  of 
loyalty  to  a  king  who  rules  in  accordance  with  the  law. 
At  one  time  Cowper  was  inclined  to  regard  the  govern- 
ment of  George  III.  as  a  repetition  of  that  of  Charles  I., 
absolutist  in  the  State  and  reactionary  in  the  Church ;  but 
the  progress  of  revolutionary  opinions  evidently  increased 
his  loyalty,  as  it  did  that  of  many  other  Whigs,  to  the 
good  Tory  king.  We  shall  presently  see,  however,  that 
the  views  of  the  French  Revolution  itself  expressed  in  his 
letters  are  wonderfully  rational,  calm,  and  free  from  the 
political  panic  and  the  apocalyptic  hallucination,  both  of 
which  we  should  rather  have  expected  to  find  in  him.  He 
describes  himself  to  Newton  as  having  seen,  since  his  sec- 
ond attack  of  madness,  "  an  extramundane  character  with 
reference  to  this  globe,  and  though  not  a  native  of  the 
moon,  not  made  of  the  dust  of  this  planet."  The  Evan- 
gelical party  has  remained  down  to  the  present  day  non- 
political,  and  in  its  own  estimation  extramundane,  taking 
part  in  the  affairs  of  the  nation  only  when  some  religious 
object  was  directly  in  view.  In  speaking  of  the  family 
of  nations,  an  Evangelical  poet  is  of  course  a  preacher  of 
peace  and  human  brotherhood.  He  has  even  in  some  lines 
of  Charity,  which  also  were  dear  to  Cobden,  remarkably 
anticipated  the  sentiment  of  modern  economists  respecting 
the  influence  of  free  trade  in  making  one  nation  of  mankind. 
The  passage  is  defaced  by  an  atrociously  bad  simile : — 

"Again — the  band  of  commerce  was  design'd, 
To  associate  all  the  branches  of  mankind, 
And  if  a  boundless  plenty  be  the  robe, 
Trade  is  the  golden  girdle  of  the  globe. 
Wise  to  promote  whatever  end  he  means, 
God  opens  fruitful  Nature's  various  scenes, 

F     4* 


76  COWPER.  [chap. 

Each  climate  needs  what  other  climes  produce, 
And  offers  something  to  the  general  use ; 
No  land  but  listens  to  the  common  call, 
And  in  return  receives  supply  from  all. 
This  genial  intercourse  and  mutual  aid 
Cheers  what  were  else  an  universal  shade, 
Calls  Nature  from  her  ivy-mantled  den, 
And  softens  human  rock-work  into  men." 

Now  and  then,  however,  in  reading  The  Task,  we  come 
across  a  dash  of  warlike  patriotism  which,  amidst  the  gen- 
eral philanthropy,  surprises  and  offends  the  reader's  palate, 
like  the  taste  of  garlic  in  our  butter. 

An  innocent  Epicurism,  tempered  by  religious  asceticism 
of  a  mild  kind — such  is  the  philosophy  of  The  Task,  and 
such  the  ideal  embodied  in  the  portrait  of  the  happy  man 
with  which  it  concludes.  Whatever  may  be  said  of  the 
religious  asceticism,  the  Epicurism  required  a  corrective  to 
redeem  it  from  selfishness  and  guard  it  against  self-deceit. 
This  solitary  was  serving  humanity  in  the  best  way  he 
could,  not  by  his  prayers,  as  in  one  rather  fanatical  pas- 
sage he  suggests,  but  by  his  literary  work ;  he  had  need 
also  to  remember  that  humanity  was  serving  him.  The 
newspaper  through  which  he  looks  out  so  complacently 
into  the  great  "  Babel,"  has  been  printed  in  the  great  Babel 
itself,  and  brought  by  the  poor  postman,  with  his  "  spat- 
tered boots,  strapped  waist,  and  frozen  locks,"  to  the  recluse 
sitting  comfortably  by  his  fireside.  The  "  fragrant  lymph  " 
poured  by  "  the  fair"  for  their  companion  in  his  cosy  seclu- 
sion, has  been  brought  over  the  sea  by  the  trader,  who  must 
encounter  the  moral  dangers  of  a  trader's  life,  as  well  as  the 
perils  of  the  stormy  wave.     It  is  delivered  at  the  door  by 

"  The  waggoner  who  bears 
The  pelting  brunt  of  the  tempestuous  night, 


y.]  THE  TASK.  11 

With  half-shut  eyes  and  puckered  cheeks  and  teeth 
Presented  bare  against  the  storm  f 

and  whose  coarseness  and  callousness,  as  he  whips  his  team, 
are  the  consequences  of  the  hard  calling  in  which  he  minis- 
ters to  the  recluse's  pleasure  and  refinement.  If  town  life 
has  its  evils,  from  the  city  comes  all  that  makes  retirement 
comfortable  and  civilized.  Retirement  without  the  city 
would  have  been  bookless,  and  have  fed  on  acorns. 

Rousseau  is  conscious  of  the  necessity  of  some  such  in- 
stitution as  slavery,  by  way  of  basis  for  his  beautiful  life 
according  to  nature.  The  celestial  purity  and  felicity  of 
St.  Pierre's  Paul  and  Virginia  are  sustained  by  the  labour 
of  two  faithful  slaves.  A  weak  point  of  Cowper's  philos- 
ophy, taken  apart  from  his  own  saving  activity  as  a  poet, 
betrays  itself  in  a  somewhat  similar  way. 

"  Or  if  the  garden  with  its  many  cares 
All  well  repaid  demand  him,  he  attends 
The  welcome  call,  conscious  how  much  the  hand 
Of  lubhard  labour  needs  his  watchful  eye, 
Oft  loitering  lazily  if  not  o'erseen ; 
Or  misapplying  his  unskilful  strength 
But  much  performs  himself,  no  works  indeed 
That  ask  robust  taugh  sinews  bred  to  toil, 
Servile  employ,  but  such  as  may  amuse, 
Not  tire,  demanding  rather  skill  than  force." 

We  are  told  in  The  Task  that  there  is  no  sin  in  allow- 
ing our  own  happiness  to  be  enhanced  by  contrast  with 
the  less  happy  condition  of  others :  if  we  are  doing  our 
best  to  increase  the  happiness  of  others,  there  is  none. 
Cowper,  as  we  have  said  before,  was  doing  this  to  the  ut- 
most of  his  limited  capacity. 


78  COWPER.  [chap. 

Both  in  the  Moral  Satires  and  in  The  Task,  there  are 
sweeping  denunciations  of  amusements  which  we  now  just- 
ly deem  innocent,  and  without  which,  or  something  equiv- 
alent to  them,  the  wrinkles  on  the  brow  of  care  could  not 
be  smoothed,  nor  life  preserved  from  dulness  and  morose- 
ness.  There  is  fanaticism  in  this,  no  doubt ;  but  in  justice 
to  the  Methodist  as  well  as  to  the  Puritan,  let  it  be  remem- 
bered that  the  stage,  card  parties,  and  even  dancing,  once 
had  in  them  something  from  which  even  the  most  liberal 
morality  might  recoil. 

In  his  writings  generally,  but  especially  in  The  Task, 
Cowper,  besides  being  an  apostle  of  virtuous  retirement 
and  evangelical  piety,  is,  by  his  general  tone,  an  apostle 
of  sensibility.  The  Task  is  a  perpetual  protest  not  only 
against  the  fashionable  vices  and  the  irreligion  but  against 
the  hardness  of  the  world ;  and  in  a  world  which  worship- 
ped Chesterfield  the  protest  was  not  needless,  nor  was  it 
ineffective.  Among  the  most  tangible  characteristics  of 
this  special  sensibility  is  the  tendency  of  its  brimming  love 
of  humankind  to  overflow  upon  animals ;  and  of  this  there 
are  marked  instances  in  some  passages  of  The  Task. 

"  I  would  not  enter  on  my  list  of  friends 
(Thoagh  graced  with  polished  manners  and  fine  sense, 
Yet  wanting  sensibility)  the  man 
Who  needlessly  sets  foot  upon  a  worm." 

Of  Cowper's  sentimentalism  (to  use  the  word  in  a  neu- 
tral sense),  part  flowed  from  his  own  temperament,  part 
was  Evangelical,  but  part  belonged  to  an  element  which 
was  European,  which  produced  the  Nouvelle  Heloise  and 
the  Sorrows  of  Werther,  and  which  was  found  among  the 
Jacobins  in  sinister  companionship  with  the  cruel  frenzy 
of  the  Revolution.     Cowper  shows  us  several  times  that 


v.]  THE  TASK.  79 

he  had  been  a  reader  of  Rousseau,  nor  did  he  fail  to  pro- 
duce in  his  time  a  measure  of  the  same  effect  which  Rous- 
seau produced;  though  there  have  been  so  many  senti- 
mentalists since,  and  the  vein  has  been  so  much  worked, 
that  it  is  difficult  to  carry  ourselves  back  in  imagination 
to  the  day  in  which  Parisian  ladies  could  forego  balls  to 
read  the  Nouvelle  Heloise,  or  the  stony  heart  of  people  of 
the  world  could  be  melted  by  The  Task. 

In  his  versification,  as  in  his  descriptions,  Cowper  flat- 
tered himself  that  he  imitated  no  one.  But  he  manifest- 
ly imitates  the  softer  passages  of  Milton,  whose  music  he 
compares  in  a  rapturous  passage  of  one  of  his  letters  to 
that  of  a  fine  organ.  To  produce  melody  and  variety,  he, 
like  Milton,  avails  himself  fully  of  all  the  resources  of  a 
composite  language.  Blank  verse  confined  to  short  Anglo- 
Saxon  words  is  apt  to  strike  the  ear,  not  like  the  swell  of 
an  organ,  but  like  the  tinkle  of  a  musical-box. 

The  Task  made  Cowper  famous.  He  was  told  that  he 
had  sixty  readers  at  the  Hague  alone.  The  interest  of  his 
relations  and  friends  in  him  revived,  and  those  of  whom 
he  had  heard  nothing  for  many  years  emulously  renewed 
their  connexion.  Colman  and  Thurlow  reopened  their  cor- 
respondence with  him,  Colman  writing  to  him  "like  a 
brother."  Disciples — young  Mr.  Rose,  for  instance— came 
to  sit  at  his  feet.  Complimentary  letters  were  sent  to 
him,  and  poems  submitted  to  his  judgment.  His  portrait 
was  taken  by  famous  painters.  Literary  lion-hunters  be- 
gan to  fix  their  eyes  upon  him.  His  renown  spread  even 
to  Olney.  The  clerk  of  All  Saints',  Northampton,  came 
over  to  ask  him  to  write  the  verses  annually  appended  to 
the  bill  of  mortality  for  that  parish.  Cowper  suggested 
that  "  there  were  several  men  of  genius  in  Northampton, 
particularly  Mr.  Cox,  the  statuary,  who,  as  everybody  knew, 


80  COWPER.  [chap.  y. 

was  a  first -rate  maker  of  verses."  "Alas!"  replied  the 
clerk,  "  I  have  heretofore  borrowed  help  from  him,  but  he 
is  a  gentleman  of  so  much  reading  that  the  people  of  our 
town  cannot  understand  him."  The  compliment  was  irre- 
sistible, and  for  seven  years  the  author  of  The  Task  wrote 
the  mortuary  verses  for  All  Saints',  Northampton.  Amuse- 
ment, not  profit,  was  Cowper's  aim ;  he  rather  rashly  gave 
away  his  copyright  to  his  publisher,  and  his  success  does 
not  seem  to  have  brought  him  money  in  a  direct  way ;  but 
it  brought  him  a  pension  of  300/.  in  the  end.  In  the 
meantime  it  brought  him  presents,  and  among  them  an 
annual  gift  of  50/.  from  an  anonymous  hand,  the  first  in- 
stalment being  accompanied  by  a  pretty  snuff-box  orna- 
mented with  a  picture  of  the  three  hares.  From  the  grace- 
fulness of  the  gift,  Southey  infers  that  it  came  from  a 
woman,  and  he  conjectures  that  the  woman  was  Theodora. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

8H0KT    POEMS   AND    TKAN8LATI0NS. 

The  Task  was  not  quite  finished  when  the  influence  which 
had  inspired  it  was  withdrawn.  Among  the  little  mys- 
teries and  scandals  of  literary  history  is  the  rupture  be- 
tween Cowper  and  Lady  Austen.  Soon  after  the  com- 
mencement of  their  friendship  there  had  been  a  "fracas," 
of  which  Cowper  gives  an  account  in  a  letter  to  William 
Unwin.  "My  letters  have  already  apprised  you  of  that 
close  and  intimate  connexion  that  took  place  between  the 
lady  you  visited  in  Queen  Anne  Street  and  us.  Nothing 
could  be  more  promising,  though  sudden  in  the  com- 
mencement. She  treated  us  with  as  much  unreservedness 
of  communication,  as  if  we  had  been  born  in  the  same 
house  and  educated  together.  At  her  departure,  she  her- 
self proposed  a  correspondence,  and,  because  writing  does 
not  agree  with  your  mother,  proposed  a  correspondence 
with  me.  This  sort  of  intercourse  had  not  been  long 
maintained  before  I  discovered,  by  some  slight  intimations 
of  it,  that  she  had  conceived  displeasure  at  somewhat  I 
had  written,  though  I  cannot  now  recollect  it;  conscious 
of  none  but  the  most  upright,  inoffensive  intentions,  I  yet 
apologized  for  the  passage  in  question,  and  the  flaw  was 
healed  again.  Our  correspondence  after  this  proceeded 
smoothly  for  a  considerable  time ;  but  at  length,  having 
had  repeated  occasion  to  observe  that  she  expressed  a  sort 


82  COWPER.  [chap. 

of  romantic  idea  of  our  merits,  and  built  such  expectations 
of  felicity  upon  our  friendship,  as  we  were  sure  that  noth- 
ing human  could  possibly  answer,  I  wrote  to  remind  her 
that  we  were  mortal,  to  recommend  her  not  to  think  more 
highly  of  us  than  the  subject  would  warrant,  and  intimat- 
ing that  when  we  embellish  a  creature  with  colors  taken 
from  our  own  fancy,  and,  so  adorned,  admire  and  praise  it 
beyond  its  real  merits,  we  make  it  an  idol,  and  have  noth- 
ing to  expect  in  the  end  but  that  it  will  deceive  our 
hopes,  and  that  we  shall  derive  nothing  from  it  but  a 
painful  conviction  of  our  error.  Your  mother  heard  me 
read  the  letter ;  she  read  it  herself,  and  honoured  it  with 
her  warm  approbation.  But  it  gave  mortal  offence;  it 
received,  indeed,  an  answer,  but  such  an  one  as  I  could  by 
no  means  reply  to ;  and  there  ended  (for  it  was  impossible 
it  should  ever  be  renewed)  a  friendship  that  bid  fair  to  be 
lasting ;  being  formed  with  a  woman  whose  seeming  sta- 
bility of  temper,  whose  knowledge  of  the  world  and  great 
experience  of  its  folly,  but,  above  all,  whose  sense  of  relig- 
ion and  seriousness  of  mind  (for  with  all  that  gaiety  she 
is  a  great  thinker)  induced  us  both,  in  spite  of  that  cau- 
tious reserve  that  marked  our  characters,  to  trust  her,  to 
love  and  value  her,  and  to  open  our  hearts  for  her  recep- 
tion. It  may  be  necessary  to  add  that,  by  her  own  desire, 
I  wrote  to  her  under  the  assumed  relation  of  a  brother, 
and  she  to  me  as  my  6ister.  Ceu  fumus  in  aurcu."  It  is 
impossible  to  read  this  without  suspecting  that  there  was 
more  of  "  romance  "  on  one  side  than  there  was  either  of 
romance  or  of  consciousness  of  the  situation  on  the  other. 
On  that  occasion  the  reconciliation,  though  "  impossible," 
took  place,  the  lady  sending,  by  way  of  olive  branch,  a 
pair  of  ruffles,  which  it  was  known  she  had  begun  to  work 
before  the  quarrel.     The  second  rupture  was  final.     Hay- 


ti.J      SHORT  POEMS  AND  TRANSLATIONS.       83 

ley,  who  treats  the  matter  with  sad  solemnity,  tells  us  that 
Cowper's  letter  of  farewell  to  Lady  Austen,  as  she  assured 
him  herself,  was  admirable,  though  unluckily,  not  being 
gratified  by  it  at  the  time,  she  had  thrown  it  into  the  fire. 
Cowper  has  himself  given  us,  in  a  letter  to  Lady  Hesketh, 
with  reference  to  the  final  rupture,  a  version  of  the  whole 
affair : — "  There  came  a  lady  into  this  country,  by  name 
and  title  Lady  Austen,  the  widow  of  the  late  Sir  Robert 
Austen.  At  first  she  lived  with  her  sister  about  a  mile 
from  Olney ;  but  in  a  few  weeks  took  lodgings  at  the  Vic- 
arage here.  Between  the  Vicarage  and  the  back  of  our 
house  are  interposed  our  garden,  an  orchard,  and  the  gar- 
den belonging  to  the  Vicarage.  She  had  lived  much  in 
France,  was  very  sensible,  and  had  infinite  vivacity.  She 
took  a  great  liking  to  us,  and  we  to  her.  She  had  been 
used  to  a  great  deal  of  company,  and  we,  fearing  that  she 
would  feel  such  a  transition  into  silent  retirement  irk- 
some, contrived  to  give  her  our  agreeable  company  often. 
Becoming  continually  more  and  more  intimate,  a  practice 
at  length  obtained  of  our  dining  with  each  other  alter- 
nately every  day,  Sundays  excepted.  In  order  to  facili- 
tate our  communication,  we  made  doors  in  the  two  gar- 
den-walls aforesaid,  by  which  means  we  considerably  short- 
ened the  way  from  one  house  to  the  other,  and  could 
meet  when  we  pleased  without  entering  the  town  at  all — a 
measure  the  rather  expedient,  because  the  town  is  abomi- 
nably dirty,  and  she  kept  no  carriage.  On  her  first  settle- 
ment in  our  neighbourhood,  I  made  it  my  own  particular 
business  (for  at  that  time  I  was  not  employed  in  writing, 
having  published  my  first  volume  and  not  begun  my  sec- 
ond) to  pay  my  devoirs  to  her  ladyship  every  morning  at 
eleven.     Customs  very  soon  became  laws.     I  began  The 

Task,  for  she  was  the  lady  who  gave  me  the  Sofa  for  a 

21 


84  COWFER.  [chap. 

subject.  Being  once  engaged  in  the  work,  I  began  to  feel 
the  inconvenience  of  my  morning  attendance.  We  had 
seldom  breakfasted  ourselves  till  ten ;  and  the  intervening 
hour  was  all  the  time  I  could  find  in  the  whole  day  for 
writing,  and  occasionally  it  would  happen  that  the  half 
of  that  hour  was  all  that  I  could  secure  for  the  purpose. 
But  there  was  no  remedy.  Long  usage  had  made  that 
which  was  at  first  optional  a  point  of  good  manners,  and 
consequently  of  necessity,  and  I  was  forced  to  neglect  The 
Task  to  attend  upon  the  Muse  who  had  inspired  the  sub- 
ject. But  she  had  ill-health,  and  before  I  had  quite  fin- 
ished the  work  was  obliged  to  repair  to  Bristol."  Evi- 
dently this  was  not  the  whole  account  of  the  matter,  or 
there  would  have  been  no  need  for  a  formal  letter  of  fare- 
well. We  are  very  sorry  to  find  the  revered  Mr.  Alexan- 
der Knox  saying,  in  his  correspondence  with  Bishop  Jebb, 
that  he  had  a  severer  idea  of  Lady  Austen  than  he  should 
wish  to  put  into  writing  for  publication,  and  that  he  al- 
most suspected  she  was  a  very  artful  woman.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  unsentimental  Mr.  Scott  is  reported  to 
have  said,  "  Who  can  be  surprised  that  two  women  should 
be  continually  in  the  society  of  one  man  and  not  quarrel, 
sooner  or  later,  with  each  other  f*  Considering  what  Mrs. 
Unwin  had  been  to  Cowper,  and  what  he  had  been  to  her, 
a  little  jealousy  on  her  part  would  not  have  been  highly 
criminal.  But,  as  Southey  observes,  we  shall  soon  see  two 
women  continually  in  the  society  of  this  very  man  with- 
out quarrelling  with  each  other.  That  Lady  Austen's  be- 
haviour to  Mrs.  Unwin  was  in  the  highest  degree  affec- 
tionate, Cowper  has  himself  assured  us.  Whatever  the 
cause  may  have  been,  this  bird  of  paradise,  having  alight- 
ed for  a  moment  in  Olney,  took  wing  and  was  seen  no 
more. 


Yi.]      SHORT  POEMS  AND  TRANSLATIONS.       85 

Her  place  as  a  companion  was  supplied,  and  more  than 
supplied,  by  Lady  Hesketh,  like  her  a  woman  of  the  world, 
and  almost  as  bright  and  vivacious,  but  with  more  sense 
and  stability  of  character,  and  who,  moreover,  could  be 
treated  as  a  sister  without  any  danger  of  misunderstanding. 
The  renewal  of  the  intercourse  between  Cowper  and  the 
merry  and  affectionate  play-fellow  of  his  early  days,  had 
been  one  of  the  best  fruits  borne  to  him  by  The  Task,  or 
perhaps  we  should  rather  say  by  John  Gilpin;  for  on  read- 
ing that  ballad  she  first  became  aware  that  her  cousin  had 
emerged  from  the  dark  seclusion  of  his  truly  Christian 
happiness,  and  might  again  be  capable  of  intercourse  with 
her  sunny  nature.  Full  of  real  happiness  for  Cowper  were 
her  visits  to  Olney;  the  announcement  of  her  coming 
threw  him  into  a  trepidation  of  delight.  And  how  was 
this  new  rival  received  by  Mrs.  Unwin  ?  "  There  is  some- 
thing," says  Lady  Hesketh,  in  a  letter  which  has  been  al- 
ready quoted,  "  truly  affectionate  and  sincere  in  Mrs.  TJn- 
win's  manner.  No  one  can  express  more  heartily  than 
she  does  her  joy  to  have  me  at  Olney ;  and  as  this  must 
be  for  his  sake,  it  is  an  additional  proof  of  her  regard  and 
esteem  for  him."  She  could  even  cheerfully  yield  prece- 
dence in  trifles,  which  is  the  greatest  trial  of  all.  "  Our 
friend,"  says  Lady  Hesketh, "  delights  in  a  large  table  and 
a  large  chair.  There  are  two  of  the  latter  comforts  in  my 
parlour.  I  am  sorry  to  say  that  he  and  I  always  spread 
ourselves  out  in  them,  leaving  poor  Mrs.  Unwin  to  find  all 
the  comfort  she  can  in  a  small  one,  half  as  high  again  as 
ours,  and  considerably  harder  than  marble.  However,  she 
protests  it  is  what  she  likes,  that  she  prefers  a  high  chair 
to  a  low  one,  and  a  hard  to  a  soft  one ;  and  I  hope  she 
is  sincere ;  indeed,  I  am  persuaded  she  is."  She  never 
gave  the  slightest  reason  for  doubting  her  sincerity;  so 


86  COWPER.  [chap. 

Mr.  Scott's  coarse  theory  of  the  "  two  women  "  falls  to  the 
ground;  though,  as  Lady  Hesketh  was  not  Lady  Austen, 
room  is  still  left  for  the  more  delicate  and  interesting  hy- 
pothesis. 

By  Lady  Hesketh's  care  Cowper  was  at  last  taken  out 
of  the  "  well "  at  Olney  and  transferred,  with  his  partner, 
to  a  house  at  Weston,  a  place  in  the  neighbourhood,  but 
on  higher  ground,  more  cheerful,  and  in  better  air.  The 
house  at  Weston  belonged  to  Mr.  Throckmorton,  of  Wes- 
ton Hall,  with  whom  and  Mrs.  Throckmorton,  Cowper  had 
become  so  intimate  that  they  were  already  his  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  Frog.  It  is  a  proof  of  his  freedom  from  fanatical 
bitterness  that  he  was  rather  drawn  to  them  by  their  being 
Roman  Catholics,  and  having  suffered  rude  treatment  from 
the  Protestant  boors  of  the  neighbourhood.  Weston  Hall 
had  its  grounds,  with  the  colonnade  of  chestnuts,  the 
"sportive  light"  of  which  still  "dances"  on  the  pages  of 
The  Task;  with  the  Wilderness, — 

"  Whose  well-rolled  walks, 
With  curvature  of  slow  and  easy  sweep, 
Deception  innocent,  give  ample  space 
To  narrow  bounds — " 

with  the  Grove, — 

u  Between  the  upright  shafts  of  whose  tall  elms 
We  may  discern  the  thresher  at  his  task, 
Thump  after  thump  resounds  the  constant  flail 
That  6eems  to  swing  uncertain,  and  yet  falls 
Full  on  the  destined  ear.     Wide  flies  the  chaff, 
The  rustling  straw  sends  up  a  fragrant  mist 
Of  atoms,  sparkling  in  the  noonday  beam." 

A  pretty  little  vignette,  which  the  threshing-machine  has 
now  made  antique.     There  were  ramblings,  picnics,  and 


vi.]      SHORT  POEMS  AND  TRANSLATIONS.       87 

little  dinner-parties.  Lady  Hesketh  kept  a  carriage. 
Gayhurst,  the  seat  of  Mr.  Wright,  was  visited,  as  well  as 
Weston  Hall ;  the  life  of  the  lonely  pair  was  fast  becom- 
ing social.  The  Rev.  John  Newton  was  absent  in  the 
flesh,  but  he  was  present  in  the  spirit,  thanks  to  the  tattle 
of  Olney.  To  show  that  he  was,  he  addressed  to  Mrs.  Un- 
win  a  letter  of  remonstrance  on  the  serious  change  which 
had  taken  place  in  the  habits  of  his  spiritual  children.  It 
was  answered  by  her  companion,  who  in  repelling  the  cen- 
sure mingles  the  dignity  of  self-respect  with  a  just  appre- 
ciation of  the  censor's  motives,  in  a  style  which  showed 
that  although  he  was  sometimes  mad,  he  was  not  a  fool. 

Having  succeeded  in  one  great  poem,  Cowper  thought 
of  writing  another,  and  several  subjects  were  started — The 
Mediterranean,  The  Four  Ages  of  Man,  Yardley  Oak. 
The  Mediterranean  would  not  have  suited  him  well  if  it 
was  to  be  treated  historically,  for  of  history  he  was  even 
more  ignorant  than  most  of  those  who  have  had  the  bene- 
fit of  a  classical  education,  being  capable  of  believing  that 
the  Latin  element  of  our  language  had  come  in  with  the 
Roman  conquest.  Of  the  Four  Ages  he  wrote  a  frag- 
ment. Of  Yardley  Oak  he  wrote  the  opening;  it  was, 
apparently,  to  have  been  a  survey  of  the  countries  in  con- 
nexion with  an  immemorial  oak  which  stood  in  a  neigh- 
bouring chace.  But  he  was  forced  to  say  that  the  mind 
of  man  was  not  a  fountain  but  a  cistern,  and  his  was  a 
broken  one.  He  had  expended  his  stock  of  materials  for 
a  long  poem  in  The  Task. 

These,  the  sunniest  days  of  Cowper's  life,  however,  gave 
birth  to  many  of  those  short  poems  which  are  perhaps 
his  best,  certainly  his  most  popular  works,  and  which  will 
probably  keep  his  name  alive  when  The  Task  is  read  only 
in  extracts.     The  Loss  of  the  Royal  George,  The  Solitude 


88  COWPER.  [chap. 

of  Alexander  Selkirk,  The  Poplar  Field,  The  Shrubbery, 
the  Lines  on  a  Young  Lady,  and  those  To  Mary,  will  hold 
their  places  forever  in  the  treasury  of  English  Lyrics.  In 
its  humble  way  The  Needless  Alarm  is  one  of  the  most 
perfect  of  human  compositions.  Cowper  had  reason  to 
complain  of  ^Esop  for  having  written  his  fables  before 
him.  One  great  charm  of  these  little  pieces  is  their  per- 
fect spontaneity.  Many  of  them  were  never  published; 
and  generally  they  have  the  air  of  being  the  simple  effu- 
sions of  the  moment,  gay  or  sad.  When  Cowper  was  in 
good  spirits  his  joy,  intensified  by  sensibility  and  past  suf- 
fering, played  like  a  fountain  of  light  on  all  the  little  in- 
cidents of  his  quiet  life.  An  ink-glass,  a  flatting  mill,  a 
halibut  served  up  for  dinner,  the  killing  of  a  snake  in  the 
garden,  the  arrival  of  a  friend  wet  after  a  journey,  a  cat 
shut  up  in  a  drawer,  sufficed  to  elicit  a  little  jet  of  poetical 
delight,  the  highest  and  brightest  jet  of  all  being  John  Oil- 
pin.  Lady  Austen's  voice  and  touch  still  faintly  live  in 
two  or  three  pieces  which  were  written  for  her  harpsichord. 
Some  of  the  short  poems,  on  the  other  hand,  are  poured 
from  the  darker  urn,  and  the  finest  of  them  all  is  the  sad- 
dest. There  is  no  need  of  illustrations  unless  it  be  to  call 
attention  to  a  secondary  quality  less  noticed  than  those  of 
more  importance.  That  which  used  to  be  specially  called 
"  wit,"  the  faculty  of  ingenious  and  unexpected  combina- 
tion, such  as  is  shown  in  the  similes  of  Hudibras,  was  pos- 
sessed by  Cowper  in  large  measure. 

"  A  friendship  that  in  frequent  fits 
Of  controversial  rage  emits 

The  sparks  of  disputation, 
Like  hand-in-hand  insurance  plates, 
Most  unavoidably  creates 

The  thought  of  conflagration. 


n.]      SHORT  POEMS  AND  TRANSLATIONS.       89 

"  Some  fickle  creatures  boast  a  soul 
True  as  a  needle  to  the  pole, 

Their  humour  yet  so  various — 
They  manifest  their  whole  life  through 
The  needle's  deviations  too, 
Their  love  is  so  precarious. 

"The  great  and  small  but  rarely  meet 
On  terms  of  amity  complete ; 

Plebeians  must  surrender, 
And  yield  so  much  to  noble  folk, 
It  is  combining  fire  with  smoke, 

Obscurity  with  splendour. 

u  Some  are  so  placid  and  serene 
(As  Irish  bogs  are  always  green), 

They  sleep  secure  from  waking ; 
And  are  indeed  a  bog,  that  bears 
Your  nn participated  cares 

Unmoved  and  without  quaking. 

a  Courtier  and  patriot  cannot  mix 
Their  heterogeneous  politics 

Without  an  effervescence, 
Like  that  of  salts  with  lemon  juice, 
Which  does  not  yet  like  that  produce 

A  friendly  coalescence." 

Faint  presages  of  Byron  are  heard  in  such  a  poem  as 
The  Shrubbery  ;  and  of  Wordsworth  in  such  a  poem  as  that 
To  a  Young  Lady.  But  of  the  lyrical  depth  and  passion 
of  the  great  Revolution  poets  Cowper  is  wholly  devoid. 
His  soul  was  stirred  by  no  movement  so  mighty,  if  it  were 
even  capable  of  the  impulse.  Tenderness  he  has,  and 
pathos  as  well  as  playfulness ;  he  has  unfailing  grace  and 
ease ;  he  has  clearness  like  that  of  a  trout-stream.     Fash- 


90  COWPER.  [chap. 

ions,  even  our  fashions,  change.  The  more  metaphysical 
poetry  of  our  time  has  indeed  too  much  in  it,  besides  the 
metaphysics,  to  be  in  any  danger  of  being  ever  laid  on  the 
shelf  with  the  once  admired  conceits  of  Cowley ;  yet  it 
may  one  day  in  part  lose,  while  the  easier  and  more  limpid 
kind  of  poetry  may  in  part  regain,  its  charm. 

The  opponents  of  the  Slave  Trade  tried  to  enlist  this 
winning  voice  in  the  service  of  their  cause.  Cowper  dis- 
liked the  task,  but  he  wrote  two  or  three  anti-Slave-Trade 
ballads.  The  Slave  Trader  in  the  Dumps,  with  its  ghastly 
array  of  horrors  dancing  a  jig  to  a  ballad  metre,  justifies 
the  shrinking  of  an  artist  from  a  subject  hardly  fit  for  art. 

If  the  cistern  which  had  supplied  The  Task  was  ex- 
hausted, the  rill  of  occasional  poems  still  ran  freely,  fed  by 
a  spring  which,  so  long  as  life  presented  the  most  trivial 
object  or  incident,  could  not  fail.  Why  did  not  Cowper 
go  on  writing  these  charming  pieces,  which  he  evidently 
produced  with  the  greatest  facility?  Instead  of  this,  he 
took,  under  an  evil  star,  to  translating  Homer.  The  trans- 
lation of  Homer  into  verse  is  the  Polar  Expedition  of  lit- 
erature, always  failing,  yet  still  desperately  renewed.  Ho- 
mer defies  modern  reproduction.  His  primeval  simplicity 
is  a  dew  of  the  dawn  which  can  never  be  re-distilled.  His 
primeval  savagery  is  almost  equally  unpresentable.  What 
civilized  poet  can  don  the  barbarian  sufficiently  to  revel,  or 
seem  to  revel,  in  the  ghastly  details  of  carnage,  in  hideous 
wounds  described  with  surgical  gusto,  in  the  butchery  of 
captives  in  cold  blood,  or  even  in  those  particulars  of  the 
shambles  and  the  spit  which  to  the  troubadour  of  barba- 
rism seem  as  delightful  as  the  images  of  the  harvest  and 
the  vintage?  Poetry  can  be  translated  into  poetry  only 
by  taking  up  the  ideas  of  the  original  into  the  mind  of 
the  translator,  which  is  very  difficult  when  the  translator 


tl]      SHORT  POEMS  AND  TRANSLATIONS.       91 

and  the  original  are  separated  by  a  gulf  of  thought  and 
feeling,  and  when  the  gulf  is  very  wide,  becomes  impossi- 
ble. There  is  nothing  for  it  in  the  case  of  Homer  but  a 
prose  translation.  Even  in  prose  to  find  perfect  equiva- 
lents for  some  of  the  Homeric  phrases  is  not  easy.  What- 
ever the  chronological  date  of  the  Homeric  poems  may  be. 
their  political  and  psychological  date  may  be  pretty  well 
fixed.  Politically  they  belong,  as  the  episode  of  Thersites 
shows,  to  the  rise  of  democracy  and  to  its  first  collision 
with  aristocracy,  which  Homer  regards  with  the  feelings 
of  a  bard  who  sang  in  aristocratic  halls.  Psychologically 
they  belong  to  the  time  when,  in  ideas  and  language,  the 
moral  was  just  disengaging  itself  from  the  physical.  In 
the  wail  of  Andromache,  for  instance,  adinon  epos,  which 
Pope  improves  into  "  sadly  dear,"  and  Cowper,  with  bet- 
ter taste  at  all  events,  renders  "precious,"  is  really  semi- 
physical,  and  scarcely  capable  of  exact  translation.  It  be- 
longs to  an  unreproducible  past,  like  the  fierce  joy  which, 
in  the  same  wail,  bursts  from  the  savage  woman  in  the 
midst  of  her  desolation  at  the  thought  of  the  numbers 
whom  her  husband's  hands  had  slain.  Cowper  had  studied 
the  Homeric  poems  thoroughly  in  his  youth;  he  knew 
them  so  well  that  he  was  able  to  translate  them,  not  very 
incorrectly  with  only  the  help  of  a  Clavis ;  he  understood 
their  peculiar  qualities  as  well  as  it  was  possible  for  a  read- 
er without  the  historic  sense  to  do;  he  had  compared 
Pope's  translation  carefully  with  the  original,  and  had  de- 
cisively noted  the  defects  which  make  it  not  a  version  of 
Homer,  but  a  periwigged  epic  of  the  Augustan  age.  In 
his  own  translation  he  avoids  Pope's  faults,  and  he  pre- 
serves at  least  the  dignity  of  the  original,  while  his  com- 
mand of  language  could  never  fail  him,  nor  could  he  ever 
lack  the  guidance  of  good  taste.  But  we  well  know 
G    5 


92  COWPER.  [chap. 

where  he  will  be  at  his  best.     We  turn  at  once  to  such 
passages  as  the  description  of  Calypso's  Isle. 

"  Alighting  on  Pieria,  down  he  (Hermes)  stooped 
To  Ocean,  and  the  billows  lightly  skimmed 
In  form  a  sea-mew,  such  as  in  the  bays 
Tremendous  of  the  barren  deep  her  food 
Seeking,  dips  oft  in  brine  her  ample  wing. 
In  such  disguise  o'er  many  a  wave  he  rode, 
But  reaching,  now,  that  isle  remote,  forsook 
The  azure  deep,  and  at  the  spacious  grove 
Where  dwelt  the  amber-tressed  nymph  arrived 
Found  her  within.    A  fire  on  all  the  hearth 
Blazed  sprightly,  and,  afar  diffused,  the  scent 
Of  smooth-split  cedar  and  of  cypress- wood 
Odorous,  burning  cheered  the  happy  isle. 
She,  busied  at  the  loom  and  plying  fast 
Her  golden  shuttle,  with  melodious  voice 
Sat  chanting  there ;  a  grove  on  either  side, 
Alder  and  poplar,  and  the  redolent  branch 
Wide-spread  of  cypress,  skirted  dark  the  cave 
Where  many  a  bird  of  broadest  pinion  built 
Secure  her  nest,  the  owl,  the  kite,  and  daw, 
Long-tongued  frequenters  of  the  sandy  shores. 
A  garden  vine  luxuriant  on  all  sides 
Mantled  the  spacious  cavern,  cluster-hung 
Profuse ;  four  fountains  of  serenest  lymph, 
Their  sinuous  course  pursuing  side  by  side, 
Strayed  all  around,  and  everywhere  appeared 
Meadows  of  softest  verdure  purpled  o'er 
With  violets ;  it  was  a  scene  to  fill 
A  God  from  heaven  with  wonder  and  delight." 

There  are  faults  in  this,  and  even  blunders,  notably  in 
the  natural  history ;  and  "  serenest  lymph "  is  a  sad  de- 
parture from  Homeric  simplicity.     Still,  on  the  whole,  the 


ti]  SHORT  POEMS  AND  TRANSLATIONS.  98 

passage  in  the  translation  charms,  and  its  charm  is  tolera- 
bly identical  with  that  of  the  original.  In  more  martial 
and  stirring  passages  the  failure  is  more  signal,  and  here 
especially  we  feel  that  if  Pope's  rhyming  couplets  are  sor- 
ry equivalents  for  the  Homeric  hexameter,  blank  verse  is 
superior  to  them  only  in  a  negative  way.  The  real  equiv- 
alent, if  any,  is  the  romance  metre  of  Scott,  parts  of  whose 
poems,  notably  the  last  canto  of  Marmion  and  some  pas- 
sages in  the  Lay  of  the  Last  Minstrel,  are  about  the  most 
Homeric  things  in  our  language.  Cowper  brought  such 
poetic  gifts  to  his  work  that  his  failure  might  have  de- 
terred others  from  making  the  same  hopeless  attempt. 
But  a  failure  his  work  is ;  the  translation  is  no  more  a 
counterpart  of  the  original,  than  the  Ouse  creeping  through 
its  meadows  is  the  counterpart  of  the  ^Egean  rolling  be- 
fore a  fresh  wind  and  under  a  bright  sun.  Pope  delights 
school-boys ;  Cowper  delights  nobody,  though,  on  the  rare 
occasions  when  he  is  taken  from  the  shelf,  he  commends 
himself,  in  a  certain  measure,  to  the  taste  and  judgment  of 
cultivated  men. 

In  his  translations  of  Horace,  both  those  from  the  Sat- 
ires and  those  from  the  Odes,  Cowper  succeeds  far  better. 
Horace  requires  in  his  translator  little  of  the  fire  which 
Cowper  lacked.  In  the  Odes  he  requires  grace,  in  the 
Satires  urbanity  and  playfulness,  all  of  which  Cowper  had 
in  abundance.  Moreover,  Horace  is  separated  from  us  by 
no  intellectual  gulf.  He  belongs  to  what  Dr.  Arnold  call- 
ed the  modern  period  of  ancient  history.  Nor  is  Cowper's 
translation  of  part  of  the  eighth  book  of  Virgil's  ^Eneid 
bad,  in  spite  of  the  heaviness  of  the  blank  verse.  Virgil, 
like  Horace,  is  within  his  intellectual  range. 

As  though  a  translation  of  the  whole  of  the  Homeric 
poems  had  not  been  enough  to  bury  his  finer  faculty,  and 


94  COWPER.  [chap.  n. 

prevent  him  from  giving  us  any  more  of  the  minor  poems, 
the  publishers  seduced  him  into  undertaking  an  edition 
of  Milton,  which  was  to  eclipse  all  its  predecessors  in  splen- 
dour. Perhaps  he  may  have  been  partly  entrapped  by  a 
chivalrous  desire  to  rescue  his  idol  from  the  disparagement 
cast  on  it  by  the  tasteless  and  illiberal  Johnson.  The  proj- 
ect, after  weighing  on  his  mind  and  spirits  for  some  time, 
was  abandoned,  leaving  as  its  traces  only  translations  of 
Milton's  Latin  poems,  and  a  few  notes  on  Paradise  Lost,  in 
which  there  is  too  much  of  religion,  too  little  of  art. 

Lady  Hesketh  had  her  eye  on  the  Laureateship,  and 
probably  with  that  view  persuaded  her  cousin  to  write 
loyal  verses  on  the  recovery  of  George  III.  He  wrote 
the  verses,  but  to  the  hint  of  the  Laureateship  he  said, 
"  Heaven  guard  my  brows  from  the  wreath  you  mention, 
whatever  wreaths  beside  may  hereafter  adorn  them.  It 
would  be  a  leaden  extinguisher  clapt  on  my  genius,  and  I 
should  never  more  produce  a  line  worth  reading."  Be- 
sides, was  he  not  already  the  mortuary  poet  of  All  Saints, 
Northampton? 


CHAPTER  VII. 

THE  LETTERS. 

Southey,  no  mean  judge  in  such  a  matter,  calls  Cowper 
the  best  of  English  letter  -  writers.  If  the  first  place  is 
shared  with  him  by  any  one  it  is  by  Byron,  rather  than 
by  Gray,  whose  letters  are  pieces  of  fine  writing,  addressed 
to  literary  men,  or  Horace  Walpole,  whose  letters  are  me- 
moirs, the  English  counterpart  of  St.  Simon.  The  letters 
both  of  Gray  and  Walpole  are  manifestly  written  for  pub- 
lication. Those  of  Cowper  have  the  true  epistolary  charm. 
They  are  conversation,  perfectly  artless,  and  at  the  same 
time  autobiography,  perfectly  genuine ;  whereas  all  formal 
autobiography  is  cooked.  They  are  the  vehicles  of  the 
writer's  thoughts  and  feelings,  and  the  mirror  of  his  life. 
We  have  the  strongest  proofs  that  they  were  not  written 
for  publication.  In  many  of  them  there  are  outpourings 
of  wretchedness  which  could  not  possibly  have  been  in- 
tended for  any  heart  but  that  to  which  they  were  ad- 
dressed, while  others  contain  medical  details  which  no 
one  would  have  thought  of  presenting  to  the  public  eye. 
Some,  we  know,  were  answers  to  letters  received  but  a 
moment  before;  and  Southey  says  that  the  manuscripts 
are  very  free  from  erasures.  Though  Cowper  kept  a  note- 
book for  subjects,  which  no  doubt  were  scarce  with  him, 
it  is  manifest  that  he  did  not  premeditate,     Grace  of  form 


96  COWPER.  [chap. 

he  never  lacks,  but  this  was  a  part  of  his  nature,  improved 
by  his  classical  training.  The  character  and  the  thoughts 
presented  are  those  of  a  recluse  who  was  sometimes  a  hyp- 
ochondriac; the  life  is  life  at  Olney.  But  simple  self- 
revelation  is  always  interesting,  and  a  garrulous  playful- 
ness with  great  happiness  of  expression  can  lend  a  certain 
charm  even  to  things  most  trivial  and  commonplace. 
There  is  also  a  certain  pleasure  in  being  carried  back  to 
the  quiet  days  before  railways  and  telegraphs,  when  peo- 
ple passed  their  whole  lives  on  the  same  spot,  and  life 
moved  always  in  the  same  tranquil  round.  In  truth,  it  is 
to  such  days  that  letter-writing,  as  a  species  of  literature, 
belongs;  telegrams  and  postal  cards  have  almost  killed  it 
now. 

The  large  collection  of  Cowper's  letters  is  probably  sel- 
dom taken  from  the  shelf;  and  the  "Elegant  Extracts" 
select  those  letters  which  are  most  sententious,  and  there- 
fore least  characteristic.  Two  or  three  specimens  of  the 
other  style  may  not  be  unwelcome  or  needless  as  elements 
of  a  biographical  sketch ;  though  specimens  hardly  do  jus- 
tice to  a  series  of  which  the  charm,  such  as  it  is,  is  evenly 
diffused,  not  gathered  into  centres  of  brilliancy  like  Ma- 
dame de  Sevigne's  letter  on  the  Orleans  Marriage.  Here 
is  a  letter  written  in  the  highest  spirits  to  Lady  Hesketh. 

"Olney,  Feb.  9th,  1786. 
"  My  dearest  Cousin, — I  have  been  impatient  to  tell 
you  that  I  am  impatient  to  see  you  again.  Mrs.  Unwin 
partakes  with  me  in  all  my  feelings  upon  this  subject,  and 
longs  also  to  see  you.  I  should  have  told  you  so  by  the 
last  post,  but  have  been  so  completely  occupied  by  this 
tormenting  specimen,  that  it  was  impossible  to  do  it.  I 
sent  the  General  a  letter  on  Monday,  that  would  distress 


tii]  THE  LETTERS.  9Y 

and  alarm  him ;  I  sent  him  another  yesterday,  that  will,  I 
hope,  quiet  him  again.  Johnson  has  apologized  very  civ- 
illy for  the  multitude  of  his  friend's  strictures;  and  his 
friend  has  promised  to  confine  himself  in  future  to  a  com- 
parison of  me  with  the  original,  so  that,  I  doubt  not,  we 
shall  jog  on  merrily  together.  And  now,  my  dear,  let  me 
tell  you  once  more  that  your  kindness  in  promising  us  a 
visit  has  charmed  us  both.  I  shall  see  you  again.  I  shall 
hear  your  voice.  We  shall  take  walks  together.  I  will 
show  you  my  prospects — the  hovel,  the  alcove,  the  Ouse  and 
its  banks,  everything  that  I  have  described.  I  anticipate 
the  pleasure  of  those  days  not  very  far  distant,  and  feel  a 
part  of  it  at  this  moment.  Talk  not  of  an  inn  !  Mention 
it  not  for  your  life !  We  have  never  had  so  many  visit- 
ors but  we  could  easily  accommodate  them  all ;  though  we 
have  received  Unwin,  and  his  wife,  and  his  sister,  and  his 
son  all  at  once.  My  dear,  I  will  not  let  you  come  till  the 
end  of  May,  or  beginning  of  June,  because  before  that 
time  my  greenhouse  will  not  be  ready  to  receive  us,  and 
it  is  the  only  pleasant  room  belonging  to  us.  When  the 
plants  go  out,  we  go  in.  I  line  it  with  mats,  and  spread 
the  floor  with  mats ;  and  there  you  shall  sit  with  a  bed  of 
mignonette  at  your  side,  and  a  hedge  of  honeysuckles, 
roses,  and  jasmine ;  and  I  will  make  you  a  bouquet  of  myr- 
tle every  day.  Sooner  than  the  time  I  mention  the  coun- 
try will  not  be  in  complete  beauty. 

"  And  I  will  tell  you  what  you  shall  find  at  your  first 
entrance.  Imprimis,  as  soon  as  you  have  entered  the  ves- 
tibule, if  you  cast  a  look  on  either  side  of  you,  you  shall 
see  on  the  right  hand  a  box  of  my  making.  It  is  the  box 
in  which  have  been  lodged  all  my  hares,  and  in  which 
lodges  Puss  at  present ;  but  he,  poor  fellow,  is  worn  out 
with  age,  and  promises  to  die  before  you  can  see  him. 


96  COWPER.  [chap. 

On  the  right  hand  stands  a  cupboard,  the  work  of  the 
same  author ;  it  was  once  a  dove-cage,  but  I  transformed 
it.  Opposite  to  you  stands  a  table,  which  I  also  made ; 
but  a  merciless  servant  having  scrubbed  it  until  it  became 
paralytic,  it  serves  no  purpose  now  but  of  ornament ;  and 
all  my  clean  shoes  stand  under  it.  On  the  left  hand,  at 
the  further  end  of  this  superb  vestibule,  you  will  find  the 
door  of  the  parlour,  into  which  I  will  conduct  you,  and 
where  I  will  introduce  you  to  Mrs.  Unwin,  unless  we 
should  meet  her  before,  and  where  we  will  be  as  happy 
as  the  day  is  long.  Order  yourself,  my  cousin,  to  the 
Swan  at  Newport,  and  there  you  shall  find  me  ready  to 
conduct  you  to  Olney. 

"  My  dear,  I  have  told  Homer  what  you  say  about  casks 
and  urns,  and  have  asked  him  whether  he  is  sure  that  it  is 
a  cask  in  which  Jupiter  keeps  his  wine.  He  swears  that 
it  is  a  cask,  and  that  it  will  never  be  anything  better  than 
a  cask  to  eternity.  So,  if  the  god  is  content  with  it,  we 
must  even  wonder  at  his  taste,  and  be  so  too. 

"  Adieu !  my  dearest,  dearest  cousin.  W.  C." 

Here,  by  way  of  contrast,  is  a  letter  written  in  the  low- 
est spirits  possible  to  Mr.  Newton.  It  displays  literary 
grace  inalienable  even  in  the  depths  of  hypochondria.  It 
also  shows  plainly  the  connexion  of  hypochondria  with 
the  weather.  January  was  a  month  to  the  return  of 
which  the  sufferer  always  looked  forward  with  dread  as  a 
mysterious  season  of  evil.  It  was  a  season,  especially  at 
Olney,  of  thick  fog  combined  with  bitter  frosts.  To  Cow- 
per  this  state  of  the  atmosphere  appeared  the  emblem  of 
his  mental  state ;  we  see  in  it  the  cause.  At  the  close  the 
letter  slides  from  spiritual  despair  to  the  worsted-merchant, 
showing  that,  as  we  remarked  before,  the  language  of  de- 


yii.]  THE  LETTERS.  99 

spondency  had  become  habitual,  and  does  not  always  flow 
from  a  soul  really  in  the  depths  of  woe. 

To  the  Rev.  John  Newton. 

"  Jan.  13th,  1Y84. 

"  My  dear  Friend, — I  too  have  taken  leave  of  the  old 
year,  and  parted  with  it  just  when  you  did,  but  with  very 
different  sentiments  and  feelings  upon  the  occasion.  I 
looked  back  upon  all  the  passages  and  occurrences  of  it, 
as  a  traveller  looks  back  upon  a  wilderness  through  which 
he  has  passed  with  weariness  and  sorrow  of  heart,  reaping 
no  other  fruit  of  his  labour  than  the  poor  consolation  that, 
dreary  as  the  desert  was,  he  has  left  it  all  behind  him. 
The  traveller  would  find  even  this  comfort  consideraoly  les- 
sened if,  as  soon  as  he  had  passed  one  wilderness,  another 
of  equal  length,  and  equally  desolate,  should  expect  him. 
In  this  particular,  his  experience  and  mine  would  exactly 
tally.  I  should  rejoice,  indeed,  that  the  old  year  is  over 
and  gone,  if  I  had  not  every  reason  to  prophesy  a  new  one 
similar  to  it. 

"  The  new  year  is  already  old  in  my  account.  I  am  not, 
indeed,  sufficiently  second-sighted  to  be  able  to  boast  by 
anticipation  an  acquaintance  with  the  events  of  it  yet  un- 
born, but  rest  convinced  that,  be  they  what  they  may,  not 
one  of  them  comes  a  messenger  of  good  to  me.  If  even 
death  itself  should  be  of  the  number,  he  is  no  friend  of 
mine.  It  is  an  alleviation  of  the  woes  even  of  an  unen- 
lightened man,  that  he  can  wish  for  death,  and  indulge  a 
hope,  at  least,  that  in  death  he  shall  find  deliverance.  But, 
loaded  as  my  life  is  with  despair,  I  have  no  such  comfort 
as  would  result  from  a  supposed  probability  of  better 
things  to  come,  were  it  once  ended.  For,  more  unhappy 
than  the  traveller  with  whom  I  set  out,  pass  through  what 
5*  22 


100  COWPER.  [chat. 

difficulties  I  may,  through  whatever  dangers  and  afflictions, 
I  am  not  a  whit  nearer  the  home,  unless  a  dungeon  may  be 
called  so.  This  is  no  very  agreeable  theme ;  but  in  so  great 
a  dearth  of  subjects  to  write  upon,  and  especially  impress- 
ed as  I  am  at  this  moment  with  a  sense  of  my  own  condi- 
tion, I  could  choose  no  other.  The  weather  is  an  exact 
emblem  of  my  mind  in  its  present  state.  A  thick  fog  en- 
velopes everything,  and  at  the  same  time  it  freezes  intense- 
ly. You  will  tell  me  that  this  cold  gloom  will  be  succeed- 
ed by  a  cheerful  spring,  and  endeavour  to  encourage  me  to 
hope  for  a  spiritual  change  resembling  it ; — but  it  will  be 
lost  labour.  Nature  revives  again ;  but  a  soul  once  slain 
lives  no  more.  The  hedge  that  has  been  apparently  dead, 
is  not  so;  it  will  burst  into  leaf  and  blossom  at  the  ap- 
pointed time ;  but  no  such  time  is  appointed  for  the  stake 
that  stands  in  it.  It  is  as  dead  as  it  seems,  and  will  prove 
itself  no  dissembler.  The  latter  end  of  next  month  will 
complete  a  period  of  eleven  years  in  which  I  have  spoken 
no  other  language.  It  is  a  long  time  for  a  man,  whose 
eyes  were  once  opened,  to  spend  in  darkness ;  long  enough 
to  make  despair  an  inveterate  habit;  and  such  it  is  in  me. 
My  friends,  I  know,  expect  that  I  shall  see  yet  again. 
They  think  it  necessary  to  the  existence  of  divine  truth, 
that  he  who  once  had  possession  of  it  should  never  finally 
lose  it.  I  admit  the  solidity  of  this  reasoning  in  every 
case  but  my  own.  And  why  not  in  my  own  ?  For  causes 
which  to  them  it  appears  madness  to  allege,  but  which 
rest  upon  my  mind  with  a  weight  of  immovable  convic- 
tion. If  I  am  recoverable,  why  am  I  thus? — why  crippled 
and  made  useless  in  the  Church,  just  at  that  time  of  life 
when,  my  judgment  and  experience  being  matured,  I  might 
be  most  useful  ? — why  cashiered  and  turned  out  of  service, 
till,  according  to  the  course  of  nature,  there  is  not  life 


til]  THE  LETTERS.  101 

enough  left  in  me  to  make  amends  for  the  years  I  have 
lost — till  there  is  no  reasonable  hope  left  that  the  fruit  can 
ever  pay  the  expense  of  the  fallow  ?  I  forestall  the  an- 
swer : — God's  ways  are  mysterious,  and  He  giveth  no  ac- 
count of  His  matters — an  answer  that  would  serve  my 
purpose  as  well  as  theirs  to  use  it.  There  is  a  mystery  in 
my  destruction,  and  in  time  it  shall  be  explained. 

"  I  am  glad  you  have  found  so  much  hidden  treasure ; 
and  Mrs.  Unwin  desires  me  to  tell  you  that  you  did  her 
no  more  than  justice  in  believing  that  she  would  rejoice  in 
it.  It  is  not  easy  to  surmise  the  reason  why  the  reverend 
doctor,  your  predecessor,  concealed  it.  Being  a  subject  of 
a  free  government,  and  I  suppose  full  of  the  divinity  most 
in  fashion,  he  could  not  fear  lest  his  riches  should  expose 
him  to  persecution.  Nor  can  1  suppose  that  he  held  it 
any  disgrace  for  a  dignitary  of  the  Church  to  be  wealthy, 
at  a  time  when  Churchmen  in  general  spare  no  pains  to  be- 
come so.  But  the  wisdom  of  some  men  has  a  droll  sort 
of  knavishness  in  it,  much  like  that  of  a  magpie,  who  hides 
what  he  finds  with  a  deal  of  contrivance,  merely  for  the 
pleasure  of  doing  it. 

"  Mrs.  Unwin  is  tolerably  well.  She  wishes  me  to  add 
that  she  shall  be  obliged  to  Mrs.  Newton,  if,  when  an  op- 
portunity offers,  she  will  give  the  worsted-merchant  a  jog. 
We  congratulate  you  that  Eliza  does  not  grow  worse, 
which  I  know  you  expected  would  be  the  case  in  the 
course  of  the  winter.  Present  our  love  to  her.  Remem- 
ber us  to  Sally  Johnson,  and  assure  yourself  that  we  re- 
main as  warmly  as  ever,  Yours,  W.  C. 

"  M.  U." 

In  the  next  specimen  we  shall  see  the  faculty  of  impart- 
ing interest  to  the  most  trivial  incident  by  the  way  of  tell- 


102  COWPER.  [chap. 

ing  it.    The  incident  in  this  case  is  one  which  also  forms 
the  subject  of  the  little  poem  called  The  Colubriad. 


To  the  Rev.  William  Unwin. 

"Aug.  3rd,  1782. 

"My  dear  Friend, — Entertaining  some  hope  that  Mr. 
Newton's  next  letter  would  furnish  me  with  the  means  of 
satisfying  your  inquiry  on  the  subject  of  Dr.  Johnson's 
opinion,  I  have  till  now  delayed  my  answer  to  your  last ; 
but  the  information  is  not  yet  come,  Mr.  Newton  having 
intermitted  a  week  more  than  usual  since  his  last  writing. 
When  I  receive  it,  favourable  or  not,  it  shall  be  communi- 
cated to  you ;  but  I  am  not  very  sanguine  in  my  expecta- 
tions from  that  quarter.  Very  learned  and  very  critical 
heads  are  hard  to  please.  He  may,  perhaps,  treat  me  with 
levity  for  the  sake  of  my  subject  and  design,  but  the  com- 
position, I  think,  will  hardly  escape  his  censure.  Though 
all  doctors  may  not  be  of  the  same  mind,  there  is  one  doc- 
tor at  least,  whom  I  have  lately  discovered,  my  professed 
admirer.  He  too,  like  Johnson,  was  with  difficulty  per- 
suaded to  read,  having  an  aversion  to  all  poetry  except 
the  Night  Thoughts ;  which,  on  a  certain  occasion,  when 
being  confined  on  board  a  ship,  he  had  no  other  employ- 
ment, he  got  by  heart.  He  was,  however,  prevailed  upon, 
and  read  me  several  times  over ;  so  that  if  my  volume  had 
sailed  with  him,  instead  of  Dr.  Young's,  I  might,  perhaps, 
have  occupied  that  shelf  in  his  memory  which  he  then  al- 
lotted to  the  Doctor :  his  name  is  Renny,  and  he  lives  at 
Newport  Pagnel. 

"  It  is  a  sort  of  paradox,  but  it  is  true :  we  are  never 
more  in  danger  than  when  we  think  ourselves  most  secure, 
nor  in  reality  more  secure  than  when  we  seem  to  be  most 


til]  THE  LETTERS.  103 

in  danger.  Both  sides  of  this  apparent  contradiction  were 
lately  verified  in  my  experience.  Passing  from  the  green- 
house to  the  barn,  I  saw  three  kittens  (for  we  have  so 
many  in  our  retinue)  looking  with  fixed  attention  at  some- 
thing, which  lay  on  the  threshold  of  a  door,  coiled  up.  I 
took  but  little  notice  of  them  at  first;  but  a  loud  hiss  en- 
gaged me  to  attend  more  closely,  when  behold — a  viper ! 
the  largest  I  remember  to  have  seen,  rearing  itself,  darting 
its  forked  tongue,  and  ejaculating  the  aforementioned  hiss 
at  the  nose  of  a  kitten,  almost  in  contact  with  his  lips.  I 
ran  into  the  hall  for  a  hoe  with  a  long  handle,  with  which 
I  intended  to  assail  him,  and  returning  in  a  few  seconds 
missed  him :  he  was  gone,  and  I  feared  had  escaped  me. 
Still,  however,  the  kitten  sat  watching  immovably  upon 
the  same  spot.  I  concluded,  therefore,  that,  sliding  be- 
tween the  door  and  the  threshold,  he  had  found  his  way 
out  of  the  garden  into  the  yard.  I  went  round  immedi- 
ately, and  there  found  him  in  close  conversation  with  the 
old  cat,  whose  curiosity  being  excited  by  so  novel  an  ap- 
pearance, inclined  her  to  pat  his  head  repeatedly  with  her 
fore  foot ;  with  her  claws,  however,  sheathed,  and  not  in 
anger,  but  in  the  way  of  philosophical  inquiry  and  exami- 
nation. To  prevent  her  failing  a  victim  to  so  laudable  an 
exercise  of  her  talents,  I  interposed  in  a  moment  with  the 
hoe,  and  performed  an  act  of  decapitation,  which,  though 
not  immediately  mortal,  proved  so  in  the  end.  Had  he 
slid  into  the  passages,  where  it  is  dark,  or  had  he,  when  in 
the  yard,  met  with  no  interruption  from  the  cat,  and  se- 
creted himself  in  any  of  the  outhouses,  it  is  hardly  possi- 
ble but  that  some  of  the  family  must  have  been  bitten ; 
he  might  have  been  trodden  upon  without  being  per- 
ceived, and  have  slipped  away  before  the  sufferer  could 
have   well   distinguished    what   foe   had   wounded  him. 


104  COWPER.  [chap. 

Three  years  ago  we  discovered  one  in  the  same  place, 
which  the  barber  slew  with  a  trowel. 

"  Our  proposed  removal  to  Mr.  Small's  was,  as  you  sup- 
pose, a  jest,  or  rather  a  joco-serious  matter.  We  never 
looked  upon  it  as  entirely  feasible,  yet  we  saw  in  it  some- 
thing so  like  practicability,  that  we  did  not  esteem  it  alto- 
gether unworthy  of  our  attention.  It  was  one  of  those 
projects  which  people  of  lively  imaginations  play  with, 
and  admire  for  a  few  days,  and  then  break  in  pieces. 
Lady  Austen  returned  on  Thursday  from  London,  where 
she  spent  the  last  fortnight,  and  whither  she  was  called  by 
an  unexpected  opportunity  to  dispose  of  the  remainder  of 
her  lease.  She  has  now,  therefore,  no  longer  any  connex- 
ion with  the  great  city ;  she  has  none  on  earth  whom  she 
calls  friends  but  us,  and  no  house  but  at  Olney.  Her 
abode  is  to  be  at  the  Vicarage,  where  she  has  hired  as 
much  room  as  she  wants,  which  she  will  embellish  with 
her  own  furniture,  and  which  she  will  occupy,  as  soon  as 
the  minister's  wife  has  produced  another  child,  which  is 
expected  to  make  its  entry  in  October. 

"  Mr.  Bull,  a  dissenting  minister  of  Newport,  a  learned, 
ingenious,  good-natured,  pious  friend  of  ours,  who  some- 
times visits  us,  and  whom  we  visited  last  week,  has  put 
into  my  hands  three  volumes  of  French  poetry,  composed 
by  Madame  Guyon ; — a  quietist,  say  you,  and  a  fanatic ;  I 
will  have  nothing  to  do  with  her.  It  is  very  well,  you  are 
welcome  to  have  nothing  to  do  with  her,  but  in  the  mean- 
time her  verse  is  the  only  French  verse  I  ever  read  that  I 
found  agreeable;  there  is  a  neatness  in  it  equal  to  that 
which  we  applaud  with  so  much  reason  in  the  composi- 
tions of  Prior.  I  have  translated  several  of  them,  and 
shall  proceed  in  my  translations  till  I  have  filled  a  Lillipu- 
tian paper-book  I  happen  to  have  by  me,  which,  when  fill- 


vu.]  THE  LETTERS.  105 

ed,  I  shall  present  to  Mr.  Bull.  He  is  her  passionate  ad- 
mirer, rode  twenty  miles  to  see  her  picture  in  the  house  of 
a  stranger,  which  stranger  politely  insisted  on  his  accept- 
ance of  it,  and  it  now  hangs  over  his  parlour  chimney.  It 
is  a  striking  portrait,  too  characteristic  not  to  be  a  strong 
resemblance,  and  were  it  encompassed  with  a  glory,  in- 
stead of  being  dressed  in  a  nun's  hood,  might  pass  for  the 
face  of  an  angel. 

"Our  meadows  are  covered  with  a  winter-flood  in  Au- 
gust; the  rushes  with  which  our  bottomless  chairs  were 
to  have  been  bottomed,  and  much  hay,  which  was  not  car- 
ried, are  gone  down  the  river  on  a  voyage  to  Ely,  and  it  is 
even  uncertain  whether  they  will  ever  return.  Sic  transit 
gloria  mundi! 

"  I  am  glad  you  have  found  a  curate ;  may  he  answer ! 
Am  happy  in  Mrs.  Bouverie's  continued  approbation;  it 
is  worth  while  to  write  for  such  a  reader.     Yours, 

"W.C." 

The  power  of  imparting  interest  to  commonplace  inci- 
dents is  so  great  that  we  read  with  a  sort  of  excitement  a 
minute  account  of  the  conversion  of  an  old  card-table  into 
a  writing  and  dining  table,  with  the  causes  and  conse- 
quences of  that  momentous  event;  curiosity  having  been 
first  cunningly  aroused  by  the  suggestion  that  the  clerical 
friend  to  whom  the  letter  is  addressed  might,  if  the  mys- 
tery were  not  explained,  be  haunted  by  it  when  he  was 
getting  into  his  pulpit,  at  which  time,  as  he  had  told  Cow- 
per,  perplexing  questions  were  apt  to  come  into  his  mind. 

A  man  who  lived  by  himself  could  have  little  but  him- 
self to  write  about.  Yet  in  these  letters  there  is  hardly  a 
touch  of  offensive  egotism.  Nor  is  there  any  querulous- 
ness,  except  that  of  religious  despondency.     From  those 


106  COWPER.  [chap. 

weaknesses  Cowper  was  free.     Of  his  proneness  to  self- 
revelation  we  have  had  a  specimen  already. 

The  minor  antiquities  of  the  generations  immediately 
preceding  ours  are  becoming  rare,  as  compared  with  those 
of  remote  ages,  because  nobody  thinks  it  worth  while  to 
preserve  them.  It  is  almost  as  easy  to  get  a  personal 
memento  of  Priam  or  Nimrod  as  it  is  to  get  a  harpsichord, 
a  spinning-wheel,  a  tinder-box,  or  a  scratch  -  back.  An 
Egyptian  wig  is  attainable,  a  wig  of  the  Georgian  era  is 
hardly  so,  much  less  a  tie  of  the  Regency.  So  it  is  with 
the  scenes  of  common  life  a  century  or  two  ago.  They 
are  being  lost,  because  they  were  familiar.  Here  are  two 
of  them,  however,  which  have  limned  themselves  with  the 
distinctness  of  the  camera-obscura  on  the  page  of  a  chron- 
icler of  trifles. 

To  the  Rev.  John  Newton. 

i 

"Nov.  17th,  1Y83. 
"My  dear  Friend, — The  country  around  is  much 
alarmed  with  apprehensions  of  fire.  Two  have  happened 
since  that  of  Olney.  One  at  Hitchin,  where  the  damage  is 
said  to  amount  to  eleven  thousand  pounds ;  and  another, 
at  a  place  not  far  from  Hitchin,  of  which  I  have  not  yet 
learnt  the  name.  Letters  have  been  dropped  at  Bedford, 
threatening  to  burn  the  town ;  and  the  inhabitants  have 
been  so  intimidated  as  to  have  placed  a  guard  in  many  parts 
of  it,  several  nights  past.  Since  our  conflagration  here,  we 
have  sent  two  women  and  a  boy  to  the  justice  for  depre- 
dation ;  S.  R.  for  stealing  a  piece  of  beef,  which,  in  her  ex- 
cuse, she  said  she  intended  to  take  care  of.  This  lady, 
whom  you  well  remember,  escaped  for  want  of  evidence; 
not  that  evidence  was  wanting,  but  our  men  of  Gotham 
judged  it  unnecessary  to  send  it.    With  her  went  the 


m]  THE  LETTERS.  107 

woman  I  mentioned  before,  who,  it  seems,  has  made  some 
sort  of  profession,  but  upon  this  occasion  allowed  herself  a 
latitude  of  conduct  rather  inconsistent  with  it,  having  filled 
her  apron  with  wearing-apparel,  which  she  likewise  intend- 
ed to  take  care  of.  She  would  have  gone  to  the  county 
gaol,  had  William  Raban,  the  baker's  son,  who  prosecuted, 
insisted  upon  it;  but  he,  good-naturedly,  though  I  think 
weakly,  interposed  in  her  favour,  and  begged  her  off.  The 
young  gentleman  who  accompanied  these  fair  ones  is  the 
junior  son  of  Molly  Boswell.  He  had  stolen  some  iron- 
work, the  property  of  Griggs  the  butcher.  Being  convict- 
ed, he  was  ordered  to  be  whipped,  which  operation  he  un- 
derwent at  the  cart's  tail,  from  the  stone-house  to  the  high 
arch,  and  back  again.  He  seemed  to  show  great  fortitude, 
but  it  was  all  an  imposition  upon  the  public.  The  beadle, 
who  performed  it,  had  filled  his  left  hand  with  yellow 
ochre,  through  which,  after  every  stroke,  he  drew  the  lash 
of  his  whip,  leaving  the  appearance  of  a  wound  upon  the 
skin,  but  in  reality  not  hurting  him  at  all.  This  being 
perceived  by  Mr.  Constable  H.,  who  followed  the  beadle, 
he  applied  his  cane,  without  any  such  management  or  pre- 
caution, to  the  shoulders  of  the  too  merciful  executioner. 
The  scene  immediately  became  more  interesting.  The 
beadle  could  by  no  means  be  prevailed  upon  to  strike 
hard,  which  provoked  the  constable  to  strike  harder ;  and 
this  double  flogging  continued,  till  a  lass  of  Silver-End, 
pitying  the  pitiful  beadle  thus  suffering  under  the  hands  of 
the  pitiless  constable,  joined  the  procession,  and  placing 
herself  immediately  behind  the  latter,  seized  him  by  his 
capillary  club,  and  pulling  him  backwards  by  the  same, 
slapped  his  face  with  a  most  Amazon  fury.  This  con- 
catenation of  events  has  taken  up  more  of  my  paper  than 

I  intended  it  should,  but  I  could  not  forbear  to  inform  you 
H 


108  COWPER  [chap. 

how  the  beadle  thrashed  the  thief,  the  constable  the  bea- 
dle, and  the  lady  the  constable,  and  how  the  thief  was  the 
only  person  concerned  who  suffered  nothing.  Mr.  Teedon 
has  been  here,  and  is  gone  again.  He  came  to  thank  me 
for  some  left-off  clothes.  In  answer  to  our  inquiries  after 
his  health,  he  replied  that  he  had  a  slow  fever,  which  made 
him  take  all  possible  care  not  to  inflame  his  blood.  I  ad- 
mitted his  prudence,  but  in  his  particular  instance  could 
not  very  clearly  discern  the  need  of  it.  Pump  water  will 
not  heat  him  much ;  and,  to  speak  a  little  in  his  own  style, 
more  inebriating  fluids  are  to  him,  I  fancy,  not  very  attain- 
able. He  brought  us  news,  the  truth  of  which,  however, 
I  do  not  vouch  for,  that  the  town  of  Bedford  was  actually 
on  fire  yesterday,  and  the  flames  not  extinguished  when 
the  bearer  of  the  tidings  left  it. 

"  Swift  observes,  when  he  is  giving  his  reasons  why  the 
preacher  is  elevated  always  above  his  hearers,  that,  let  the 
crowd  be  as  great  as  it  will  below,  there  is  always  room 
enough  overhead.  If  the  French  philosophers  can  carry 
their  art  of  flying  to  the  perfection  they  desire,  the  obser- 
vation may  be  reversed,  the  crowd  will  be  overhead,  and 
they  will  have  most  room  who  stay  below.  I  can  assure 
you,  however,  upon  my  own  experience,  that  this  way  of 
travelling  is  very  delightful.  I  dreamt  a  night  or  two 
since  that  I  drove  myself  through  the  upper  regions  in  a 
balloon  and  pair,  with  the  greatest  ease  and  security.  Hav- 
ing finished  the  tour  I  intended,  I  made  a  short  turn, 
and,  with  one  flourish  of  my  whip,  descended ;  my  horses 
prancing  and  curvetting  with  an  infinite  share  of  spirit, 
but  without  the  least  danger,  either  to  me  or  my  vehicle. 
The  time,  we  may  suppose,  is  at  hand,  and  seems  to  be 
prognosticated  by  my  dr^ am,  when  these  airy  excursions 
will  be  universal,  when  judges  will  fly  the  circuit,  and 


vn.]  THE  LETTERS.  109 

bishops  their  visitations;  and  when  the  tour  of  Europe 
will  be  performed  with  much  greater  speed,  and  with  equal 
advantage,  by  all  who  travel  merely  for  the  sake  of  having 
it  to  say  that  they  have  made  it. 

"  I  beg  you  will  accept  for  yourself  and  yours  our  un- 
feigned love,  and  remember  me  affectionately  to  Mr.  Bacon, 
when  you  see  him.         Yours,  my  dear  friend, 

"Wm.  Cowper." 

To  thb  Rev.  John  Newton. 

■  March  29th,  1784. 

"Mr  dear  Friend,  —  It  being  his  Majesty's  pleasure 
that  I  should  yet  have  another  opportunity  to  write  before 
he  dissolves  the  Parliament,  I  avail  myself  of  it  with  all 
possible  alacrity.  I  thank  you  for  your  last,  which  was 
not  the  less  welcome  for  coming,  like  an  extraordinary 
gazette,  at  a  time  when  it  was  not  expected. 

"As  when  the  sea  is  uncommonly  agitated,  the  water 
finds  its  way  into  creeks  and  holes  of  rocks,  which  in  its 
calmer  state  it  never  reaches,  in  like  manner  the  effect  of 
these  turbulent  times  is  felt  even  at  Orchard  Side,  where, 
in  general,  we  live  as  undisturbed  by  the  political  element 
as  shrimps  or  cockles  that  have  been  accidentally  deposited 
in  some  hollow  beyond  the  water-mark,  by  the  usual  dash- 
ing of  the  waves.  We  were  sitting  yesterday  after  dinner, 
the  two  ladies  and  myself,  very  composedly,  and  without 
the  least  apprehension  of  any  such  intrusion  in  our  snug 
parlour,  one  lady  knitting,  the  other  netting,  and  the  gen- 
tleman winding  worsted,  when  to  our  unspeakable  surprise 
a  mob  appeared  before  the  window ;  a  smart  rap  was 
heard  at  the  door,  the  boys  bellowed,  and  the  maid  an- 
nounced Mr.  Grenville.  Puss  was  unfortunately  let  out 
of  her  box,  so  that  the  candidate,  with  all  his  good  friends 

I 


110  OOWPER.  [chap. 

at  his  heels,  was  refused  admittance  at  the  grand  entry, 
and  referred  to  the  back  door,  as  the  only  possible  way  of 
approach. 

"Candidates  are  creatures  not  very  susceptible  of  af- 
fronts, and  would  rather,  I  suppose,  climb  in  at  the  win- 
dow than  be  absolutely  excluded.  In  a  minute,  the  yard, 
the  kitchen,  and  the  parlour  were  filled.  Mr.  Grenville, 
advancing  toward  me,  shook  me  by  the  hand  with  a  de- 
gree of  cordiality  that  was  extremely  seducing.  As  soon 
as  he,  and  as  many  more  as  could  find  chairs,  were  seated, 
he  began  to  open  the  intent  of  his  visit.  I  told  him  I  had 
no  vote,  for  which  he  readily  gave  me  credit.  I  assured 
him  I  had  no  influence,  which  he  was  not  equally  inclined 
to  believe,  and  the  less,  no  doubt,  because  Mr.  Ashburner, 
the  draper,  addressing  himself  to  me  at  this  moment,  in- 
formed me  that  I  had  a  great  deal.  Supposing  that  I 
could  not  be  possessed  of  such  a  treasure  without  knowing 
it,  I  ventured  to  confirm  my  first  assertion  by  saying,  that 
if  I  had  any  I  was  utterly  at  a  loss  to  imagine  where  it 
could  be,  or  wherein  it  consisted.  Thus  ended  the  con- 
ference. Mr.  Grenville  squeezed  me  by  the  hand  again, 
kissed  the  ladies,  and  withdrew.  He  kissed,  likewise,  the 
maid  in  the  kitchen,  and  seemed,  upon  the  whole,  a  most 
loving,  kissing,  kind-hearted  gentleman.  He  is  very  young, 
genteel,  and  handsome.  He  has  a  pair  of  very  good  eyes 
in  his  head,  which  not  being  sufficient  as  it  should  seem 
for  the  many  nice  and  difficult  purposes  of  a  senator,  he 
has  a  third  also,  which  he  suspended  from  his  buttonhole. 
The  boys  halloo'd ;  the  dogs  barked ;  puss  scampered ;  the 
hero,  with  his  long  train  of  obsequious  followers,  with- 
drew. We  made  ourselves  very  merry  with  the  adventure, 
and  in  a  short  time  settled  into  our  former  tranquillity, 
never  probably  to  be  thus  interrupted  more.     I  thought 


vii.]  THE  LETTERS.  Ill 

myself,  however,  happy  in  being  able  to  affirm  truly  that 
I  had  not  that  influence  for  which  he  sued ;  and  which, 
had  I  been  possessed  of  it,  with  my  present  views  of  the 
dispute  between  the  Crown  and  the  Commons,  I  must 
have  refused  him,  for  he  is  on  the  side  of  the  former.  It 
is  comfortable  to  be  of  no  consequence  in  a  world  where 
one  cannot  exercise  any  without  disobliging  somebody. 
The  town,  however,  seems  to  be  much  at  his  service,  and 
if  he  be  equally  successful  throughout  the  country,  he  will 
undoubtedly  gain  his  election.  Mr.  Ashburner,  perhaps, 
was  a  little  mortified,  because  it  was  evident  that  I  owed 
the  honour  of  this  visit  to  his  misrepresentation  of  my  im- 
portance. But  had  he  thought  proper  to  assure  Mr.  Gren- 
ville  that  I  had  three  heads,  I  should  not,  I  suppose,  have 
been  bound  to  produce  them. 

"  Mr.  Scott,  who  you  say  was  so  much  admired  in  your 
pulpit,  would  be  equally  admired  in  his  own,  at  least  by 
all  capable  judges,  were  he  not  so  apt  to  be  angry  with  his 
congregation.  This  hurt  him,  and  had  he  the  understand- 
ing and  eloquence  of  Paul  himself,  would  still  hurt  him. 
He  seldom,  hardly  ever  indeed,  preaches  a  gentle,  well-tem- 
pered sermon,  but  I  hear  it  highly  commended;  but  warmth 
of  temper,  indulged  to  a  degree  that  may  be  called  scold- 
ing, defeats  the  end  of  preaching.  It  is  a  misapplication 
of  his  powers,  which  it  also  cripples,  and  tears  away  his 
hearers.  But  he  is  a  good  man,  and  may  perhaps  out- 
grow it. 

"  Many  thanks  for  the  worsted,  which  is  excellent.  We 
are  as  well  as  a  spring  hardly  less  severe  than  the  severest 
winter  will  give  us  leave  to  be.  With  our  united  love,  we 
conclude  ourselves  yours  and  Mrs.  Newton's  affectionate 
and  faithful,  W.  C. 

"M.U." 


112  COWPER.  [chap. 

In  1789  the  French  Revolution,  advancing  with  thunder- 
tread,  makes  even  the  hermit  of  Weston  look  up  for  a 
moment  from  his  translation  of  Homer,  though  he  little 
dreamed  that  he,  with  his  gentle  philanthropy  and  senti- 
mentalism,  had  anything  to  do  with  the  great  overturn  of 
the  social  and  political  systems  of  the  past.  From  time 
to  time  some  crash  of  especial  magnitude  awakens  a  faint 
echo  in  the  letters. 

To  Lady  Hesketh. 

"July  7th,  1790. 

"  Instead  of  beginning  with  the  saffron-vested  mourning 
to  which  Homer  invites  me,  on  a  morning  that  has  no  saf- 
fron vest  to  boast,  I  shall  begin  with  you.  It  is  irksome 
to  us  both  to  wait  so  long  as  we  must  for  you,  but  we  are 
willing  to  hope  that  by  a  longer  stay  you  will  make  us 
amends  for  all  this  tedious  procrastination. 

"  Mrs.  Unwin  has  made  known  her  whole  case  to  Mr. 
Gregson,  whose  opinion  of  it  has  been  very  consolatory  to 
me ;  he  says,  indeed,  it  is  a  case  perfectly  out  of  the  reach 
of  all  physical  aid,  but  at  the  same  time  not  at  all  danger- 
ous. Constant  pain  is  a  sad  grievance,  whatever  part  is 
affected,  and  she  is  hardly  ever  free  from  an  aching  head, 
as  well  as  an  uneasy  side;  but  patience  is  an  anodyne  of 
God's  own  preparation,  and  of  that  He  gives  her  largely. 

"  The  French  who,  like  all  lively  folks,  are  extreme  in 
everything,  are  such  in  their  zeal  for  freedom ;  and  if  it 
were  possible  to  make  so  noble  a  cause  ridiculous,  their 
manner  of  promoting  it  could  not  fail  to  do  so.  Princes 
and  peers  reduced  to  plain  gentlemanship,  and  gentles  re- 
duced to  a  level  with  their  own  lackeys,  are  excesses  of 
which  they  will  repent  hereafter.  Differences  of  rank  and 
subordination  are,  I  believe,  of  God's  appointment,  and 


to.]  THE  LETTERS.  113 

consequently  essential  to  the  well-being  of  society;  but 
what  we  mean  by  fanaticism  in  religion  is  exactly  that 
which  animates  their  politics;  and,  unless  time  should 
sober  them,  they  will,  after  all,  be  an  unhappy  people. 
Perhaps  it  deserves  not  much  to  be  wondered  at,  that  at 
their  first  escape  from  tyrannic  shackles  they  should  act 
extravagantly,  and  treat  their  kings  as  they  have  some- 
times treated  their  idol.  To  these,  however,  they  are 
reconciled  in  due  time  again,  but  their  respect  for  mon- 
archy is  at  an  end.  They  want  nothing  now  but  a  little 
English  sobriety,  and  that  they  want  extremely.  I  heart- 
ily wish  them  some  wit  in  their  anger,  for  it  were  great 
pity  that  so  many  millions  should  be  miserable  for  want 
of  it." 

This,  it  will  be  admitted,  is  very  moderate  and  unapoca- 
lyptic.  Presently  Monarchical  Europe  takes  arms  against 
the  Revolution.  But  there  are  two  political  observers  at 
least  who  see  that  Monarchical  Europe  is  making  a  mis- 
take —  Kaunitz  and  Cowper.  "  The  French,"  observes 
Cowper  to  Lady  Hesketh  in  December,  1792,  "are  a  vain 
and  childish  people,  and  conduct  themselves  on  this  grand 
occasion  with  a  levity,and  extravagance  nearly  akin  to  mad- 
ness ;  but  it  would  have  been  better  for  Austria  and  Prus- 
sia to  let  them  alone.  All  nations  have  a  right  to  choose 
their  own  form  of  government,  and  the  sovereignty  of  the 
people  is  a  doctrine  that  evinces  itself ;  for,  whenever  the 
people  choose  to  be  masters,  they  always  are  so,  and  none 
can  hinder  them.  God  grant  that  we  may  have  no  revo- 
lution here,  but  unless  we  have  reform,  we  certainly  shall. 
Depend  upon  it,  my  dear,  the  hour  has  come  when  power 
founded  on  patronage  and  corrupt  majorities  must  govern 
this  land  no  longer.    Concessions,  too,  must  be  made  to 


114  COWPER.  [chap. 

Dissenters  of  every  denomination.  They  have  a  right  to 
them  —  a  right  to  all  the  privileges  of  Englishmen,  and 
sooner  or  later,  by  fair  means  or  by  foul,  they  will  have 
them."  Even  in  1793,  though  he  expresses,  as  he  well 
might,  a  cordial  abhorrence  of  the  doings  of  the  French, 
he  calls  them  not  fiends,  but  "  madcaps."  He  expresses 
the  strongest  indignation  against  the  Tory  mob  which 
sacked  Priestley's  house  at  Birmingham,  as  he  does,  in 
justice  be  it  said,  against  all  manifestations  of  fanaticism. 
We  cannot  help  sometimes  wishing,  as  we  read  these  pas- 
sages in  the  letters,  that  their  calmness  and  reasonableness 
could  have  been  communicated  to  another  "  Old  Whig," 
who  was  setting  the  world  on  fire  with  his  anti-revolution- 
ary rhetoric. 

It  is  true,  as  has  already  been  said,  that  Cowper  was 
"  extramundane ;"  and  that  his  political  reasonableness  was 
in  part  the  result  of  the  fancy  that  he  and  his  fellow-saints 
had  nothing  to  do  with  the  world  but  to  keep  themselves 
clear  of  it,  and  let  it  go  its  own  way  to  destruction.  But 
it  must  also  be  admitted  that  while  the  wealth  of  Estab- 
lishments of  which  Burke  was  the  ardent  defender,  is  nec- 
essarily reactionary  in  the  highest  degree,  the  tendency 
of  religion  itself,  where  it  is  genuine  and  sincere,  must  be 
to  repress  any  selfish  feeling  about  class  or  position,  and 
to  make  men,  in  temporal  matters,  more  willing  to  sacri- 
fice the  present  to  the  future,  especially  where  the  hope  is 
held  out  of  moral  as  well  as  of  material  improvement. 
Thus  it  has  come  to  pass  that  men  who  professed  and 
imagined  themselves  to  have  no  interest  in  this  world 
have  practically  been  its  great  reformers  and  improvers  in 
the  political  and  material  as  well  as  in  the  moral  sphere. 

The  last  specimen  shall  be  one  in  the  more  sententious 
style,  and  one  which  proves  that  Cowper  was  capable  of 


vn.]  THE  LETTERS.  115 

writing  in  a  judicious  manner  on  a  difficult  and  delicate 
question — even  a  question  so  difficult  and  so  delicate  as 
that  of  the  propriety  of  painting  the  face. 

To  the  Rev.  William  Unwin. 

"May  3d,  1784. 

"  My  dear  Friend, — The  subject  of  face  painting  may 
be  considered,  I  think,  in  two  points  of  view.  First,  there 
is  room  for  dispute  with  respect  to  the  consistency  of  the 
practice  with  good  morals ;  and,  secondly,  whether  it  be,  on 
the  whole,  convenient  or  not,  may  be  a  matter  worthy  of 
agitation.  I  set  out  with  all  the  formality  of  logical  dis- 
quisition, but  do  not  promise  to  observe  the  same  regulari- 
ty any  further  than  it  may  comport  with  my  purpose  of 
writing  as  fast  as  I  can. 

"As  to  the  immorality  of  the  custom,  were  I  in  France, 
I  should  see  none.  On  the  contrary,  it  seems  in  that 
country  to  be  a  symptom  of  modest  consciousness,  and  a 
tacit  confession  of  what  all  know  to  be  true,  that  French 
faces  have,  in  fact,  neither  red  nor  white  of  their  own. 
This  humble  acknowledgment  of  a  defect  looks  the  more 
like  a  virtue,  being  found  among  a  people  not  remarkable 
for  humility.  Again,  before  we  can  prove  the  practice  to 
be  immoral,  we  must  prove  immorality  in  the  design  of 
those  who  use  it;  either  that  they  intend  a  deception, 
or  to  kindle  unlawful  desires  in  the  beholders.  But  the 
French  ladies,  so  far  as  their  purpose  comes  in  question, 
must  be  acquitted  of  both  these  charges.  Nobody  sup- 
poses their  colour  to  be  natural  for  a  moment,  any  more 
than  he  would  if  it  were  blue  or  green ;  and  this  unam- 
biguous judgment  of  the  matter  is  owing  to  two  causes : 
first,  to  the  universal  knowledge  we  have,  that  French 
women  are  naturally  either  brown  or  yellow,  with  very  few 
6  23 


116  COWPER.  [cha*. 

exceptions;  and  secondly,  to  the  inartificial  manner  in 
which  they  paint ;  for  they  do  not,  as  I  am  most  satisfac- 
torily informed,  even  attempt  an  imitation  of  nature,  hut 
besmear  themselves  hastily,  and  at  a  venture,  anxious  only 
to  lay  on  enough.  Where,  therefore,  there  is  no  wanton 
intention,  nor  a  wish  to  deceive,  I  can  discover  no  immo- 
rality. But  in  England,  I  am  afraid,  our  painted  ladies  are 
not  clearly  entitled  to  the  same  apology.  They  even  imi- 
tate nature  with  such  exactness  that  the  whole  public  is 
sometimes  divided  into  parties,  who  litigate  with  great 
warmth  the  question  whether  painted  or  not?  This  was 
remarkably  the  case  with  a  Miss  B ,  whom  I  well  re- 
member. Her  roses  and  lilies  were  never  discovered  to 
be  spurious  till  she  attained  an  age  that  made  the  suppo- 
sition of  their  being  natural  impossible.  This  anxiety  to 
be  not  merely  red  and  white,  which  is  all  they  aim  at  in 
France,  but  to  be  thought  very  beautiful,  and  much  more 
beautiful  than  Nature  has  made  them,  is  a  symptom  not 
very  favourable  to  the  idea  we  would  wish  to  entertain  of 
the  chastity,  purity,  and  modesty  of  our  countrywomen. 
That  they  are  guilty  of  a  design  to  deceive,  is  certain. 
Otherwise  why  so  much  art  ?  and  if  to  deceive,  wherefore 
and  with  what  purpose  ?  Certainly  either  to  gratify  van- 
ity of  the  silliest  kind,  or,  which  is  still  more  criminal,  to 
decoy  and  inveigle,  and  carry  on  more  successfully  the 
business  of  temptation.  Here,  therefore,  my  opinion  splits 
itself  into  two  opposite  sides  upon  the  same  question.  I 
can  suppose  a  French  woman,  though  painted  an  inch 
deep,  to  be  a  virtuous,  discreet,  excellent  character ;  and  in 
no  instance  should  I  think  the  worse  of  one  because  she 
was  painted.  But  an  English  belle  must  pardon  me  if  I 
have  not  the  same  charity  for  her.  She  is  at  least  an  im- 
postor, whether  she  cheats  me  or  not,  because  she  means 


til]  THE  LETTERS.  117 

to  do  so ;  and  it  is  well  if  that  be  all  the  censure  she  de- 
serves. 

"  This  brings  me  to  my  second  class  of  ideas  upon  this 
topic ;  and  here  I  feel  that  I  should  be  fearfully  puzzled 
were  I  called  upon  to  recommend  the  practice  on  the  score 
of  convenience.  If  a  husband  chose  that  his  wife  should 
paint,  perhaps  it  might  be  her  duty,  as  well  as  her  interest, 
to  comply.  But  I  think  he  would  not  much  consult  his 
own,  for  reasons  that  will  follow.  In  the  first  place,  she 
would  admire  herself  the  more ;  and  in  the  next,  if  she 
managed  the  matter  well,  she  might  be  more  admired  by 
others;  an  acquisition  that  might  bring  her  virtue  under 
trials,  to  which  otherwise  it  might  never  have  been  ex- 
posed. In  no  other  case,  however,  can  I  imagine  the  prac- 
tice in  this  country  to  be  either  expedient  or  convenient. 
As  a  general  one  it  certainly  is  not  expedient,  because,  in 
general,  English  women  have  no  occasion  for  it.  A 
swarthy  complexion  is  a  rarity  here ;  and  the  sex,  especial- 
ly since  inoculation  has  been  so  much  in  use,  have  very 
little  cause  to  complain  that  nature  has  not  been  kind  to 
them  in  the  article  of  complexion.  They  may  hide  and 
spoil  a  good  one,  but  they  cannot,  at  least  they  hardly  can, 
give  themselves  a  better.  But  even  if  they  could,  there 
is  yet  a  tragedy  in  the  sequel  which  should  make  them 
tremble. 

"  I  understand  that  in  France,  though  the  use  of  rouge 
be  general,  the  use  of  white  paint  is  far  from  being  so. 
In  England,  she  that  uses  one  commonly  uses  both.  Now, 
all  white  paints,  or  lotions,  or  whatever  they  may  be  called, 
are  mercurial ;  consequently  poisonous,  consequently  ruin- 
ous, in  time,  to  the  constitution.     The  Miss  B above 

mentioned  was  a  miserable  witness  of  this  truth,  it  being 
certain  that  her  flesh  fell  from  her  bones  before  she  died. 


118  COWPER.  [chap.  vii. 

Lady  Coventry  was  hardly  a  less  melancholy  proof  of  it; 
and  a  London  physician,  perhaps,  were  he  at  liberty  to 
blab,  could  publish  a  bill  of  female  mortality,  of  a  length 
that  would  astonish  us. 

"  For  these  reasons  I  utterly  condemn  kuo  practice,  as  it 
obtains  in  England ;  and  for  a  reason  superior  to  all  these, 
I  must  disapprove  it.  I  cannot,  indeed,  discover  that 
Scripture  forbids  it  in  so  many  words.  But  that  anxious 
solicitude  about  the  person,  which  such  an  artifice  evident- 
ly betrays,  is,  I  am  sure,  contrary  to  the  tenor  and  spirit 
of  it  throughout.  Show  me  a  woman  with  a  painted  face, 
and  I  will  show  you  a  woman  whose  heart  is  set  on  things 
of  the  earth,  and  not  on  things  above. 

"But  this  observation  of  mine  applies  to  it  only  when 
it  is  an  imitative  art.  For,  in  the  use  of  French  women,  I 
think  it  is  as  innocent  as  in  the  use  of  a  wild  Indian,  who 
draws  a  circle  round  her  face,  and  makes  two  spots,  per- 
haps blue,  perhaps  white,  in  the  middle  of  it.  Such  are 
my  thoughts  upon  the  matter. 

"  Vive  valeque. 

"  Yours  ever, 

"W.C." 

These  letters  have  been  chosen  as  illustrations  of  Cow- 
per's  epistolary  style,  and  for  that  purpose  they  have  been 
given  entire.  But  they  are  also  the  best  pictures  of  his 
character;  and  his  character  is  everything.  The  events 
of  his  life  worthy  of  record  might  all  be  comprised  in  a 
dozen  pages. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

CLOSE  OF  LIFE. 

Cowper  says  there  could  not  have  been  a  happier  trio  on 
earth  than  Lady  Hesketh,  Mrs.  Unwin,  and  himself.  Nev- 
ertheless, after  his  removal  to  Weston,  he  again  went  mad, 
and  once  more  attempted  self-destruction.  His  malady 
was  constitutional,  and  it  settled  down  upon  him  as  his 
years  increased,  and  his  strength  failed.  He  was  now 
sixty.  The  Olney  physicians,  instead  of  husbanding  his 
vital  power,  had  wasted  it  away  secundum  artem  by  purg- 
ing, bleeding,  and  emetics.  He  had  overworked  himself 
on  his  fatal  translation  of  Homer,  under  the  burden  of 
which  he  moved,  as  he  says  himself,  like  an  ass  overladen 
with  sand-bags.  He  had  been  getting  up  to  work  at  six, 
and  not  breakfasting  till  eleven.  And  now  the  life  from 
which  his  had  for  so  many  years  been  fed,  itself  began  to 
fail.  Mrs.  Unwin  was  stricken  with  paralysis ;  the  stroke 
was  slight,  but  of  its  nature  there  was  no  doubt.  Her 
days  of  bodily  life  were  numbered ;  of  mental  life  there 
remained  to  her  a  still  shorter  span.  Her  excellent  son, 
William  Unwin,  had  died  of  a  fever  soon  after  the  re- 
moval of  the  pair  to  Weston.  He  had  been  engaged  in 
the  work  of  his  profession  as  a  clergyman,  and  we  do  not 
hear  of  his  being  often  at  Olney.  But  he  was  in  constant 
correspondence  with  Cowper,  in  whose  heart  as  well  as  in 
that  of  Mrs.  Unwin,  his  death  must  have  left  a  great  void, 


120  GOWPER.  [chap. 

and  his  support  was  withdrawn  just  at  the  moment  when 
it  was  about  to  become  most  necessary. 

Happily,  just  at  this  juncture  a  new  and  a  good  friend 
appeared.  Hayley  was  a  mediocre  poet,  who  had  for  a 
time  obtained  distinction  above  his  merits.  Afterwards 
his  star  had  declined,  but  having  an  excellent  heart,  he 
had  not  been  in  the  least  soured  by  the  downfall  of  his 
reputation.  He  was  addicted  to  a  pompous  rotundity  of 
style;  perhaps  he  was  rather  absurd;  but  he  was  thor- 
oughly good-natured,  very  anxious  to  make  himself  use- 
ful, and  devoted  to  Cowper,  to  whom,  as  a  poet,  he  looked 
up  with  an  admiration  unalloyed  by  any  other  feeling. 
Both  of  them,  as  it  happened,  were  engaged  on  Milton, 
and  an  attempt  had  been  made  to  set  them  by  the  ears ; 
but  Hayley  took  advantage  of  it  to  introduce  himself  to 
Cowper  with  an  effusion  of  the  warmest  esteem.  He  was 
at  Weston  when  Mrs.  Unwin  was  attacked  with  paralysis, 
and  displayed  his  resource  by  trying  to  cure  her  with  an 
electric-machine.  At  Eartham,  on  the  coast  of  Sussex,  he 
had,  by  an  expenditure  beyond  his  means,  made  for  him- 
self a  little  paradise,  where  it  was  his  delight  to  gather  a 
distinguished  circle.  To  this  place  he  gave  the  pair  a 
pressing  invitation,  which  was  accepted  in  the  vain  hope 
that  a  change  might  do  Mrs.  Unwin  good. 

From  Weston  to  Eartham  was  a  three  days'  journey,  an 
enterprise  not  undertaken  without  much  trepidation  and 
earnest  prayer.  It  was  safely  accomplished,  however,  the 
enthusiastic  Mr.  Rose  walking  to  meet  his  poet  and  philos- 
opher on  the  way.  Hayley  had  tried  to  get  Thurlow  to 
meet  Cowper.  A  sojourn  in  a  country  house  with  the 
tremendous  Thurlow,  the  only  talker  for  whom  Johnson 
condescended  to  prepare  himself,  would  have  been  rather 
an  overpowering  pleasure ;  and  perhaps,  after  all,  it  was  as 


vra.j  CLOSE  OF  LIFE.  121 

well  that  Hayley  could  only  get  Cowper's  disciple,  Hurdis, 
afterwards  professor  of  poetry  at  Oxford,  and  Charlotte 
Smith. 

At  Eartham,  Cowper's  portrait  was  painted  by  Romney. 

"  Romney,  expert  infallibly  to  trace 
On  chart  or  canvas  not  the  form  alone 
And  semblance,  bnt,  however  faintly  shown 
The  mind's  impression  too  on  every  face, 
With  strokes  that  time  ought  never  to  erase, 
Thou  hast  so  pencilled  mine  that  though  I  own 
The  subject  worthless,  I  have  never  known 
The  artist  shining  with  superior  grace ; 
But  this  I  mark,  that  symptoms  none  of  woe 
In  thy  incomparable  work  appear : 
Well :  I  am  satisfied  it  should  be  so, 
Since  on  maturer  thought  the  cause  is  clear; 
For  in  my  looks  what  sorrow  could'st  thou  see 
When  I  was  Hayley's  guest  and  sat  to  thee." 

Southey  observes  that  it  was  likely  enough  there  would 
be  no  melancholy  in  the  portrait,  but  that  Hayley  and 
Romney  fell  into  a  singular  error  in  mistaking  for  "the 
light  of  genius  "  what  Leigh  Hunt  calls  "  a  fire  fiercer  than 
that  either  of  intellect  or  fancy,  gleaming  from  the  raised 
and  protruded  eye." 

Hayley  evidently  did  his  utmost  to  make  his  guest  hap- 
py. They  spent  the  hours  in  literary  chat,  and  compared 
notes  about  Milton.  The  first  days  were  days  of  enjoy- 
ment. But  soon  the  recluse  began  to  long  for  his  nook 
at  Weston.  Even  the  exteusiveness  of  the  view  at  Ear- 
tham made  his  mind  ache,  and  increased  his  melancholy. 
To  Weston  the  pair  returned ;  the  paralytic,  of  course, 
none  the  better  for  her  journey.     Her  mind  as  well  as  her 


122  COWPER.  [chap. 

body  was  now  rapidly  giving  way.     We  quote  as  biogra- 
phy that  which  is  too  well  known  to  be  quoted  as  poetry. 

TO  MARY. 

The  twentieth  year  is  well-nigh  past 
Since  first  our  sky  was  overcast : — 
Ah,  would  that  this  might  he  the  last ! 

My  Mary ! 

Thy  spirits  have  a  fainter  flow, 
I  see  thee  daily  weaker  grow : — 
'Twas  my  distress  that  brought  thee  low, 

My  Mary! 

Thy  needles,  once  a  shining  store, 
For  my  sake  restless  heretofore, 
Now  rust  disused,  and  shine  no  more, 

My  Mary  I 

For  though  thou  gladly  wouldst  fulfil 
The  same  kind  office  for  me  still, 
Thy  sight  now  seconds  not  thy  will, 

My  Mary ! 

But  well  thou  pi  ay  Ms  t  the  housewife's  part, 
And  all  thy  threads  with  magic  art, 
Have  wound  themselves  about  this  heart, 

My  Mary ! 

Thy  indistinct  expressions  seem 
Like  language  utter'd  in  a  dream : 
Yet  me  they  charm,  whate'er  the  theme, 

My  Mary! 

Thy  silver  locks,  once  auburn  bright, 
Are  still  more  lovely  in  my  sight 
Than  golden  beams  of  orient  light, 

My  Mary  I 


mi.]  CLOSE  OF  LIFE.  128 

For  could  I  view  nor  them  nor  thee, 
What  sight  worth  seeing  could  I  see  T 
The  sun  would  rise  in  vain  for  me, 

My  Mary ! 

Partakers  of  thy  sad  decline, 
Thy  hands  their  little  force  resign ; 
Yet  gently  press'd,  press  gently  mine, 

My  Mary ! 

Such  feebleness  of  limbs  thou  provest, 
That  now  at  every  step  thou  movest, 
Upheld  by  two ;  yet  still  thou  lovest, 

My  Mary! 

And  still  to  love,  though  press'd  with  ill, 
In  wintry  age  to  feel  no  chill, 
With  me  is  to  be  lovely  still, 

My  Mary! 

But  ah !  by  constant  heed  I  know, 
How  oft  the  sadness  that  I  show 
Transforms  thy  smiles  to  looks  of  woe, 

My  Mary ! 

And  should  my  future  lot  be  cast 
With  much  resemblance  of  the  past, 
Thy  worn-out  heart  will  break  at  last, 

My  Mary! 

Even  love,  at  least  the  power  of  manifesting  love,  began 
to  betray  its  mortality.  She  who  bad  been  so  devoted, 
became,  as  her  mind  failed,  exacting,  and  instead  of  sup- 
porting her  partner,  drew  him  down.  He  sank  again  into 
the  depth  of  hypochondria.  As  usual,  his  malady  took 
the  form  of  religious  horrors,  and  he  fancied  that  he  was 
ordained  to  undergo  severe  penance  for  his  sins.  Six  days 
he  sat  motionless  and  silent,  almost  refusing  to  take  food. 
I    6* 


124  COWPER.  [chap. 

His  physician  suggested,  as  the  only  chance  of  arousing 
him,  that  Mrs.  Unwin  should  be  induced,  if  possible,  to  in- 
vite him  to  go  out  with  her;  with  difficulty  she  was  made 
to  understand  what  they  wanted  her  to  do;  at  last  she 
said  that  it  was  a  fine  morning,  and  she  should  like  a  walk. 
Her  partner  at  once  rose  and  placed  her  arm  in  his.  Al- 
most unconsciously,  she  had  rescued  him  from  the  evil 
spirit  for  the  last  time.  The  pair  were  in  doleful  plight. 
When  their  minds  failed  they  had  fallen  in  a  miserable 
manner  under  the  influence  of  a  man  named  Teedon,  a 
schoolmaster  crazed  with  self-conceit,  at  whom  Cowper  in 
his  saner  mood  had  laughed,  but  whom  he  now  treated  as 
a  spiritual  oracle,  and  a  sort  of  medium  of  communication 
with  the  spirit-world,  writing  down  the  nonsense  which  the 
charlatan  talked.  Mrs.  Unwin,  being  no  longer  in  a  con- 
dition to  control  the  expenditure,  the  housekeeping,  of 
course,  went  wrong ;  and  at  the  same  time  her  partner  lost 
the  protection  of  the  love-inspired  tact  by  which  she  had 
always  contrived  to  shield  his  weakness  and  to  secure  for 
him,  in  spite  of  his  eccentricities,  respectful  treatment 
from  his  neighbours.  Lady  Hesketh's  health  had  failed, 
and  she  had  been  obliged  to  go  to  Bath.  Hayley  now 
proved  himself  no  mere  lion-hunter,  but  a  true  friend.  In 
conjunction  with  Cowper's  relatives,  he  managed  the  re- 
moval of  the  pair  from  Weston  to  Mundsley,  on  the  coast 
of  Norfolk,  where  Cowper  seemed  to  be  soothed  by  the 
sound  of  the  sea;  then  to  Dunham  Lodge,  near  Swaffham; 
and  finally  (in  1796)  to  East  Dereham,  where,  two  months 
after  their  arrival,  Mrs.  Unwin  died.  Her  partner  was 
barely  conscious  of  his  loss.  On  the  morning  of  her  death 
he  asked  the  servant "  whether  there  was  life  above  stairs  ?" 
On  being  taken  to  see  the  corpse,  he  gazed  at  it  for  a  mo- 
ment, uttered  one  passionate  cry  of  grief,  and  never  spoke 


vm.]  CLOSE  OF  LIFE.  125 

of  Mrs.  Unwin  more.  He  had  the  misfortune  to  survive 
her  three  years  and  a  half,  during  which  relatives  and 
friends  were  kind,  and  Miss  Perowne  partly  filled  the  place 
of  Mrs.  Unwin.  Now  and  then  there  was  a  gleam  of  rea- 
son and  faint  revival  of  literary  faculty;  but  composition 
was  confined  to  Latin  verse  or  translation,  with  one 
memorable  and  almost  awful  exception.  The  last  origi- 
nal poem  written  by  Cowper  was  The  Castaway,  founded 
on  an  incident  in  Anson's  Voyage. 

"  Obscurest  night  involved  the  sky, 

The  Atlantic  billows  roared, 
When  such  a  destined  wretch  as  I, 

Wash'd  headlong  from  on  board, 
Of  friends,  of  hope,  of  all  bereft, 
His  floating  home  forever  left. 

"No  braver  chief  could  Albion  boast 

Than  he  with  whom  he  went, 
Nor  ever  ship  left  Albion's  coast 

With  warmer  wishes  sent. 
He  loved  them  both,  but  both  in  vain ; 
Nor  him  beheld,  nor  her  again. 

"  Not  long  beneath  the  whelming  brine, 

Expert  to  swim,  he  lay ; 
Nor  soon  he  felt  his  strength  decline, 

Or  courage  die  away ; 
But  waged  with  death  a  lasting  strife, 
Supported  by  despair  of  life. 

u  He  shouted ;  nor  his  friends  had  fail'd 

To  check  the  vessel's  course, 
But  so  the  furious  blast  prevail'd 

That  pitiless  perforce 
They  left  their  outcast  mate  behind, 
And  scudded  still  before  the  wind. 


126  COWPER.  [chap. 

"  Some  succour  yet  they  could  afford ; 
And,  such  as  storms  allow, 
The  cask,  the  coop,  the  floated  cord, 

Delay'd  not  to  bestow : 
But  he,  they  knew,  nor  ship  nor  shore, 
Whate'er  they  gave,  should  visit  more. 

"  Nor,  cruel  as  it  seem'd,  could  he 

Their  haste  himself  condemn, 
Aware  that  flight  in  such  a  sea 

Alone  could  rescue  them ; 
Yet  bitter  felt  it  still  to  die 
Deserted,  and  his  friends  so  nigh. 

"  He  long  survives,  who  lives  an  hour 

In  ocean,  self-upheld ; 
And  so  long  he,  with  unspent  power, 

His  destiny  repelled : 
And  ever,  as  the  minutes  flew, 
Entreated  help,  or  cried — '  Adieu !' 

"At  length,  his  transient  respite  past, 

His  comrades,  who  before 
Had  heard  his  voice  in  every  blast, 

Could  catch  the  sound  no  more : 
For  then,  by  toil  subdued,  he  drank 
The  stifling  wave,  and  then  he  sank. 

"  No  poet  wept  him ;  but  the  page 

Of  narrative  sincere, 
That  tells  his  name,  his  worth,  his  age, 

Is  wet  with  Anson's  tear : 
And  tears  by  bards  or  heroes  shed 
Alike  immortalize  the  dead. 

"  I  therefore  purpose  not,  or  dream, 
Descanting  on  his  fate, 


Tin.]  CLOSE  OF  LIFE.  127 

To  give  the  melancholy  theme 

A  more  enduring  date : 
But  misery  still  delights  to  trace 
Its  semblance  in  another's  case. 

"  No  voice  divine  the  storm  allay  M, 
No  light  propitious  shone, 
When,  snatch'd  from  all  effectual  aid, 

We  perish'd,  each  alone : 
But  I  beneath  a  rougher  sea, 
And  whelm'd  in  deeper  gulfs  than  he." 

The  despair  which  finds  vent  in  verse  is  hardly  despair. 
Poetry  can  never  be  the  direct  expression  of  emotion ;  it 
must  be  the  product  of  reflection  combined  with  an  exer- 
cise of  the  faculty  of  composition  which  in  itself  is  pleas- 
ant. Still,  The  Castaway  ought  to  be  an  antidote  to  relig- 
ious depression,  since  it  is  the  work  of  a  man  of  whom  it 
would  be  absurdity  to  think  as  really  estranged  from  the 
spirit  of  good,  who  had  himself  done  good  to  the  utmost 
of  his  powers. 

Cowper  died  very  peacefully  on  the  morning  of  April 
25, 1800,  and  was  buried  in  Dereham  Church,  where  there 
is  a  monument  to  him  with  an  inscription  by  Hayley, 
which,  if  it  is  not  good  poetry,  is  a  tribute  of  sincere 
affection. 

Any  one  whose  lot  it  is  to  write  upon  the  life  and 
works  of  Cowper  must  feel  that  there  is  an  immense  dif- 
ference between  the  interest  which  attaches  to  him,  and 
that  which  attaches  to  any  one  among  the  far  greater 
poets  of  the  succeeding  age.  Still,  there  is  something 
about  him  so  attractive,  his  voice  has  such  a  silver  tone, 
he  retains,  even  in  his  ashes,  such  a  faculty  of  winning 
friends,  that  his  biographer  and  critic  may  be  easily  be- 


128  COWPER.  [chap.  vhi. 

guiled  into  giving  him  too  high  a  place.  He  belongs  to 
a  particular  religious  movement,  with  the  vitality  of  which 
the  interest  of  a  great  part  of  his  works  has  departed  or 
is  departing.  Still  more  emphatically  and  in  a  still  more 
important  sense  does  he  belong  to  Christianity.  In  no 
natural  struggle  for  existence  would  he  have  been  the  sur- 
vivor; by  no  natural  process  of  selection  would  he  ever 
have  been  picked  out  as  a  vessel  of  honour.  If  the  shield 
which  for  eighteen  centuries  Christ,  by  His  teaching  and 
His  death,  has  spread  over  the  weak  things  of  this  world, 
should  fail,  and  might  should  again  become  the  title  to 
existence  and  the  measure  of  worth,  Cowper  will  be  cast 
aside  as  a  specimen  of  despicable  infirmity,  and  all  who 
have  said  anything  in  his  praise  will  be  treated  with  the 
same  scorn. 


THE   END. 


THE    BROWNING    LETTERS 


THE  LETTERS  OF  ROBERT  BROWNING  AND 
ELIZABETH  BARRETT  BARRETT,  1845-1846. 
Illustrated  with  Two  Contemporary  Portraits  of  the 
Writers,  and  Two  Facsimile  Letters.  With  a  Pref- 
atory Note  by  R.  Barrett  Browning,  and  Notes, 
by  F.  G.  Ken  yon,  Explanatory  of  the  Greek  Words, 
Two  Volumes.  Crown  8vo,  Cloth,  Ornamental,  Deckel 
Edges  and  Gilt  Tops,  $5  00 ;  Half  Morocco,  $9  50. 

Many  good  gifts  have  come  to  English  literature  from  the  two 
Brownings,  husband  and  wife,  besides  those  poems,  which  are 
their  greatest.  The  gift  of  one's  poems  is  the  gift  of  one's  self .  But 
in  a  fuller  sense  have  this  unique  pair  now  given  themselves  by 
what  we  can  but  call  the  gracious  gift  of  these  letters.  As  their 
union  was  unique,  so  is  this  correspondence  unique.  .  .  .  The 
letters  are  the  most  opulent  in  various  interest  which  have  been 
published  for  many  a  day. — Academy,  London. 

We  have  read  these  letters  with  great  care,  with  growing  as- 
tonishment, with  immense  respect ;  and  the  final  result  produced 
on  our  minds  is  that  these  volumes  contain  one  of  the  most  pre- 
cious contributions  to  literary  history  which  our  time  has  seen. — 
Saturday  Review,  London. 

We  venture  to  think  that  no  such  remarkable  and  unbroken 
series  of  intimate  letters  between  two  remarkable  people  has  ever 
been  given  to  the  world.  .  .  .  There  is  something  extraordinarily 
touching  in  the  gradual  unfolding  of  the  romance  in  which  two 
poets  play  the  parts  of  hero  and  heroine. — Spectator,  London. 


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